The men’s soccer team played Plymouth State last Wednesday. The highlights of the game were violent outbursts that, if nothing else, indicated the USM team was breathing. A few punches were thrown and many penalties called. In the end though, even the brutality aspect seemed to have been taken over by Plymouth, leaving us losers on all fronts.
The final score was Plymouth State 4, USM 0.
It might have been beneficial for the USM team to start a brawl – this way they could have ended it early. Clearing both benches and having everyone get red cards might have salvaged some dignity on the part of the Huskies.
Instead they played through and were tortured for 90 minutes, watching Plymouth State score with ease, but never putting together a scoring effort of their own.
The most interesting part of the game was early on, when one of the soccer balls didn’t have enough air in it. The Plymouth State players were yelling from the field to the referees, “Can’t we get a ball with some air in it?!” Our ball boy was running around looking for a pump, before athletic director Al Bean made a call on his cell phone to get an emergency pump delivered to the field.
It turns out the moral defeat of not being able to provide a properly inflated ball was too much for the ball boy. He began verbally abusing the Plymouth State players later in the game, and was thrown out. Nearly the same thing that happened to the USM team: their jobs were difficult for them, and they also got violent.
Being at this game was a terrible experience. An embarrassment from every angle, the coach and players should make no attempt at excuses, but just move on, knowing in their hearts that it couldn’t have been much worse.