Ravens assistant coach Kwesi Loney talks about bouncing back from a loss and shaking away overconfidence.
The Carleton Ravens men’s soccer team is now turning their focus to the post-season after a shaky 1-1 season-closing weekend at home.
Despite an untimely 1-0 loss to the University of Toronto Varsity Blues Oct. 22, the team still managed to finish the season atop the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) East division with 33 points.
The following day, the men were down two goals against the Ryerson Rams before managing to come back in the second half and win the game 3-2. The three points from the win pushed them just ahead of the now second-place Varsity Blues.
“This weekend was huge for us,” said midfielder Josh Dewar-Morris. “We were losing 2-0 and to come back from that shows what we can do. If we keep our heads like how we did today, [the playoffs] shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Playoff games, we don’t take for granted,” said Ravens assistant coach Kwesi Loney. “We have a week off which is good, a bye [Oct. 26] and we play [Oct. 30]. But your opponent is your opponent. Playoff games are one and done.”
The Ravens’ loss against the Varsity Blues was their first defeat in seven games.
“[It] was a tough game,” Loney said. “We just started believing our own hype and you go into a game against a quality team and you have to put in the work ethic and we didn’t do it.”
“We were just a little bit overconfident,” Dewar-Morris said. “We didn’t come out and play like we know we can, and it took us until the second half and it was a bit too late.”
This same overconfidence plagued the men in the first 30 seconds against Ryerson, when Viktor Anastasov of the Rams froze the Ravens’ defence and booted it past goalkeeper Mark Krocko for an early advantage.
The crowd was stunned.
“Right from the get-go, our back was against the wall,” Dewar-Morris said. “But we knew from the second half of the game against Toronto how we had to come out and play.”
The men continued to scramble in their end of the field for the first 15 minutes, as a clearly frustrated Ravens team took some undisciplined penalties.
“You can never control what the referee is going to call in a game situation,” Loney said. “You just have to keep cool, keep your focus, and keep battling.”
The Rams put another goal on the board in the first, but the Ravens managed to begin their comeback with a late first half goal from midfielder Justin Campos.
The Ravens came out in the second half of the game with much more polished play. Two unanswered goals from Dewar-Morris and midfielder Danny Gutierrez along with great defensive play allowed the team to secure their first-place finish in the OUA East.
“Coming off [the loss against the Varsity Blues], playing in a game like today has a lot of emotion,” Loney said. “Tensions are high, and the guys really came out and showed a lot of character and won the game today for us.”
“There was no doubt in our mind that we were going to be able to come out and pull off a victory,” Dewar-Morris said. “And we did it.”
