NDSU at
The Bison started their longest road
trip of the regular season in Rapid City, SD taking on the South Dakota School
of Mines & Technology. NDSU played
the game without their coach as well as eight
of their usual starters due to scheduling conflicts, so the road trip would
definitely prove to be a difficult task for the Bison to keep their winning
ways. The Bison started play a bit
fatigued from the long 8.5 hour drive from Fargo. SDSMT struck first in the 9th minute when
shaky defense and poor marking allowed the SDSMT attacker an easy one-on-one
with Zach Schneider, the Bison goalkeeper.
The goal really gave the Bison the lift they needed to pick up the intensity. They were quickly rewarded when a string of
nice passes was capped off by a beautiful through ball from Ricky Urbina to
Yousif Ramses who snuck the ball past the opposing goalie and into the back of
the net. The excellent passing continued
to be the ticket to success for NDSU. In
the 34th minute, Rob Choiniere made a move to get on a breakaway with the SDSMT
keeper. He then drew the goalie to the
side of the net and passed the ball across the goal for Taylor Zimmerman to
score his first goal of the game. A
couple of questionable calls by the referee allowed great scoring chances for
the Hardrockers, who weren’t able to capitalize on any of them until the ref
blew his whistle away from the ball calling a foul in the box on John
Charles. The SDSMT player ended up
sending the penalty kick directly down the middle but it went in under
Schneider, who had chosen to dive to his side before the shot was taken. The Bison would take the 2-2 tie into
halftime.
NDSU came into the second half
with a different look, switching junior captain Brad Bateman back to his normal
midfield position (he started at sweeper due to the depleted lineup) in order
to give the team an offensive spark. This
strategy worked when in the 47th minute Bateman corralled a goal kick from
Schneider and turned it up the field to send a through ball to Zimmerman. Zimmerman proceeded to make a few nice moves
followed by a great shot giving him his second goal of the game. But Zimmerman wasn’t done yet; he struck
again in the 55th minute. Schneider made
a leaping save on a SDSMT corner kick and quickly sent a soaring punt over the SDSMT
defense, leaving Zimmerman an easy play for his hat trick. The third goal fulfilled half of Taylor’s
pre-game guarantee where Zimmerman apparently
claimed that he would score a hat trick in a Bison victory. The other more important half, the win, was
yet to be decided. The game became a bit
more interesting when in the 73rd minute one of the Hardrocker attackers
maneuvered his way into a one-on-one with Schneider. Bison defender Ardy Mahinfalah was able to
catch up to the attacker and pull him down from the side just outside of the
penalty box. Mahinfalah was given a
yellow card and the SDSMT attacker shot his free kick over the goal. Before the Bison could restart the game with
a goal kick, one of SDSMT’s players suggested giving Ardy a red card. The ref went and asked his assistant referee
his opinion which was to leave the call a yellow card. Amazingly, the center ref decided not to
listen to his assistant and instead listen to one the players on the opposing team
and give Ardy a red card. The Bison were
obviously upset by the turn of events and played a bit careless for the rest of
the game, giving up one final goal in the 85th minute on poor effort and marking. However, NDSU was able to hold on and get the
win, improving to 6-1-1 on the season (5-1-1 in the GPSC). The loss dropped SDSMT to 2-4 on the season.