NDSU vs. Georgia Southern University – November 17, 2005

The Bison started off the national tournament by playing well, but they couldn’t get anything to go their way en route to a 5-1 loss against the Georgia Southern Eagles. The game was played on a chilly, breezy Thursday afternoon in Tuscaloosa—NDSU traveled over 20 hours only to have the Fargo weather follow them! The Bison started the game rather sluggishly, but Georgia Southern was only able to muster a few wayward shots early on. About 5 minutes in, NDSU really started to control the tempo of the game. They played patiently and controlled the ball with smart passes, but just couldn’t quite put the ball in the net. Midfielder Rob Dow had a shot barely tipped away by the Eagle keeper, and Fernando Bales had a great left-footed shot that just went wide. Forwards Nathan Shubert, Eric Stanley and Selam Ahmed all created opportunities in the first half, but the ball refused to bounce the Bison’s way. With just 5 minutes left in the half, a Georgia Southern forward beat NDSU’s offside trap and walked in a shot past Bison goalkeeper Andrew Seaver to give the Eagles the lead. Just three minutes later, Seaver tipped a cross away from the net, but it didn’t go far enough and the same Georgia Southern forward rifled it in to give the Eagles a 2-0 halftime lead. NDSU was completely frustrated at halftime—they had completely outplayed the Eagles, yet were down by two. The Bison came out hard in the second half, but the Eagles struck just 6 minutes in when an Eagle midfielder beat everyone to a ball inside the box and tapped it in to give Georgia Southern a commanding 3-0 lead. NDSU was exasperated by this time and really missing a few key players that couldn’t make the tournament for one reason or another. Because of their absence, the Bison were forced to have people play out of position; with only 5 players on the bench, fatigue started to set in and Georgia Southern started to take over the flow of play. The Bison began to cheat up to try and get the score closer, but were unable to get on the board due to poor shooting and just plain bad luck on the good shots. The Eagles added two quick goals with about 8 minutes left in the game to extend the score to 5-0, but NDSU finally finished the game on a good note in the 76th minute. Ahmed beat a couple of defenders along the baseline and sent a pass to a wide open Shubert, who tapped it in for the final goal of the game.