After starting its conference schedule strong with a 3-0 record, Eckerd College men's soccer team sustained a 7-3 loss on Saturday against 14th-ranked Rollins College. In regards to that game Coach Jeremy Wisdo stated that Rollins is “unbeaten for a reason and top-15 in the country for a reason, and going to play at their place is always going to be difficult, especially under those types of circumstances.” Eckerd was able to hold their own defensively against Rollins for a majority of the game; however they gave away what Wisdo deems a few bad goals that “really took the steam out of our sails.” There were a few shining moments for the team though, senior
Luke Sheekey stood out offensively obtaining a hat trick and junior
Adam Skiff started as goalie for the first time in his collegiate career and against a nationally-ranked team with a powerful offensive line-up to boot.
Unfortunately, the results from the game against Rollins turned out to be a major blow to Eckerd in more ways than one. Not only does the defeat drop the team to a 3-1 record in the Sunshine State Conference, but senior and Co-captain
Will Thacker sustained a very unlucky injury as well in the first half of the match. The damage to Thacker's knee not only put him out for the rest of the Rollins game, but has left him sidelined for the remainder of the season, regrettably ending his collegiate career here at Eckerd College. In regards to the loss of one of his top players, Wisdo sympathized, “When you lose a player like Will who has started every single game that he has played for us his entire college career, and with his experience, his quality and his leadership, it is going to be sorely, sorely missed. You never want to see somebody get injured, but especially their senior year when they don't have the opportunity to come back from it… so our hearts go out to Will on that.” This is a team sport, however, and there are many more games ahead that Wisdo and his team need to look forward to. In adjusting to the defensive gap that Eckerd has been left with, Coach Wisdo sees this as an invaluable opportunity to let other players step up and prove to the coaching staff and their teammates “why they are here and why they deserve to play.”
The show must go on! On Wednesday, October 7 Eckerd will be traveling to St. Augustine to play against another strong team, Flagler College. Even though the match-up with Flagler is not a conference game, it is still a regional game and the Saints rank first in their conference with a 5-0 winning record. In hopes of physically and mentally preparing his team after such a crushing weekend, Wisdo looks to get in a few good training sessions in which the team will take the good and bad from the game against Rollins and get them back to doing what they do well. The positive thing about having a game so soon after Saturday's loss is that “we don't have to sit around and wait for our next game and stew and dwell over that result.” As far as their return to conference play at home on Saturday, October 10 against Nova Southeastern University, Coach Wisdo hopes that the team can get back to their full strength and potential to turn out a positive result in the battle that is conference play, “but right now we aren't going to talk to the guys at all about Saturday, we are going to talk to them completely about Wednesday.”
