Team Seaver Starts Season In St. Peter

ST. PETER, Minn. (8/30/14)—The only group missing from Concordia's official NCAA roster in their opening weekend of the 2014 season was Jason Seaver, Mike Seaver and the rest of the "Growing Pains" cast. The Cobbers dropped a pair of games at the Gustavus Tournament as eight of the 11 starters for the two games were either first or second-year players. 

Concordia's roster contains 21 freshmen or sophomores and the inexperience showed as CC lost 2-0 to No.16-ranked Wartburg in the opener and then 3-1 to Carroll (Wis.) in the second game on Saturday. The Cobbers were dominated in shot totals but were able to string together long periods of play that showed the promise of a bright future.

Concordia gave up a goal in each half against nationally ranked Wartburg on Friday to drop their first two-goal game. The Cobbers did have a goal called back in the second half after the referee whistled a CC player for a foul in the Knights penalty area after a long-ball free kick was headed into the net.

Wartburg returned eight starters, and six all-conference players, from last year's squad which advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.  

The Cobbers stumbled out of the gate on Saturday vs. Carroll and allowed a pair of unfortunate goals in the first half of play. Concordia then played even-up with the Pioneers for the final 45 minutes of the weekend.

Carroll was selected to win the Midwest Conference in the preseason coaches' poll.

Freshman Joe Thomas scored the lone goal of the tournament for Concordia. He finished off a nifty passing play with a sliding shot that beat the Carroll goalie from on top of the 6-yard box.  The scoring play started on the left side of the field when freshman defender Austin Promersberger played a ball back across the field. The ball eventually found freshman back Eli Carmona who played the ball to sophomore wing Alex Van Bemmelen. Van Bemmelen then pushed the ball down the left wing and slotted a hard-driven cross behind the Pioneer back line and Thomas was able to run onto the pass with a sliding shot to finish off the sequence.

Concordia had several quality chances to tie the game in the final 15 minutes of play. The Cobbers had a ball cleared off the goal line from a header off of a corner kick and then a CC forward got behind the Carroll defense but his breakaway attempt was played right into the goalie from 8 yards out.

Cobber sophomore goalie Ben Glogoza made 10 saves over the span of two games. Concordia had 12 shots for the two games. Sophomore forward Matthew Fulks had a team-high four shots for the tourney.

Fulks and freshman midfielder Jacob Schmidt were named to the All-Tournament Team.

Concordia will return to Moorhead and host the Cobber Invite on Friday, Sept. 5 and Sunday Sept. 7. CC will square off against UW-Superior on Friday and Simpson on Sunday.