St. Louis 1, Binghamton 0 (ot)
Magical season for men's soccer ends with heartbreaking 1-0 loss

Box Score

ST. LOUIS, Mo.--Despite a valiant effort against one of the top teams in the nation, the Binghamton men's soccer team (12-3-7) saw its outstanding 2003 season come to an end with a 1-0 overtime loss to No.
4 St. Louis (14-4-3) in a second-round NCAA Tournament game on Wednesday night. The loss snapped the Bearcats school-record 14-game unbeaten streak which included an America East Conference title and the squad's first-ever win in an NCAA Division I Tournament game last week over Fairleigh Dickinson.

The host Billikens outshot Binghamton 19-2, but thanks to sophomore goalkeeper Stefan Gonet (Refrewshire, Scotland), who made a career-high 10 saves, the Bearcats were able to send the game into overtime.

With 4:43 remaining in the first sudden-death period, however, St. Louis finally put the game away . Veded Ibisevic's shot from 16 yards away found the lower-right corner of the net. Cooper McKee was credited with the assist.

"St. Louis is a very good team," head coach Paul Marco said. "We had two good chances in the second half and played very well defensively. We wanted to get the game to penalty kicks if we could but they finally made the play to beat us."

"Binghamton played a great game," Ibisevic said. "I'm just thankful that we finally scored."

Gonet, who has posted 16 shutouts this season, was the star of the
game up until the sudden-death goal. With 25 minutes remaining in the second half, he deflected a shot by Alex Matteson which hit the post and bounced back into his arms. The Billiken players started to celebrate until they realized what Gonet had done.

"Stefan is one of the best college goalkeepers today," Marco said. "He took away two or three goals from them. He showed everything out there tonight that makes for a great keeper."

Note: Binghamton ended the 2003 season as the only team in the nation not to have allowed a first-half goal in any game it played.