Coastal Carolina men’s soccer rights ship with victory over Campbell
The Coastal Carolina men’s soccer team shook off a weekend loss, topping visiting Campbell 2-1 on Wednesday at CCU Soccer Stadium, but the midweek win is just the first step in returning to form for a team that coach Shawn Docking said hasn’t been as sharp as he would like just past the midway point of the regular season.
“With all this weather … we just didn’t do a good job of maintaining our fitness and sharpness,” Docking said. “Not to use excuses, but we’ve certainly lost a lot of our fitness over the last three weeks. We’re now just trying to regain that.”
The Chants (8-1-1) reached as high as No. 4 in the nation earlier this season, but dropped to No. 11 in the latest College Soccer News and Soccer America rankings after a 3-2 loss at UNC Asheville on Oct. 10.
Docking said Asheville has always been a tough place to play and a formidable opponent for Coastal Carolina, and the Bulldogs were fired up to face a top-5 team. Docking said UNC Asheville was simply better than Coastal Carolina that day.
“The worst thing about it was that the performance was an all-time low for us,” Docking said. “We’ve talked about it as a group. We’re trying to regain our form and get back to where we need to be and where we were at the start of the year. If we were playing the way we are now at the start of the year, we wouldn’t have been (7-0-1). We’ve got the get back to that level.”
With the win over the Camels, Coastal Carolina is 43-5-2 in its last 50 games against Big South opponents and is unbeaten in its last 22 home conference games.
The Chanticleers got goals 80 seconds apart from midfielders Sergio Camargo and Jair Espinoza in the first half to stay near the top of the Big South Conference standings at 3-1.
Camargo’s goal was his fourth of the season, and Espinoza’s was his third.
Eric Rostlund scored his first goal of the season for the Camels (4-6-0, 0-3) in the 88th minute.
Camargo and senior forward Tobenna Uzo were both left out of the starting lineup as they try to return to match fitness, but Camargo re-injured his shoulder Wednesday night.
“I thought I was back, and I guess it was still a little bit weak,” I landed on it and heard it pop,” Camargo said. He said he will see a doctor on Thursday.
Five of the Chants’ seven remaining regular season games are against Big South teams in the top half of the standings, including a home match Saturday at noon against Liberty.
“I think we’ve got to really concentrate on our performances and get back to playing well again, being a lot sharper, keeping the ball better, creating better chances and taking better care of things on the defensive side of the ball,” Docking said. “Just trying to get our level back to where we were coming out of preseason.”
Coastal Carolina also has a pair of games against ranked opponents remaining, at home on Oct. 19 against No. 17 Hofstra and Nov. 7 at No. 18 South Carolina.
This story was originally published October 14, 2015 at 11:57 PM with the headline "Coastal Carolina men’s soccer rights ship with victory over Campbell."