CCU men’s soccer wins 2019 Sunbelt Championship

The Coastal Carolina men’s soccer team defeated Georgia State on Sunday, Nov. 17 to win the Sunbelt Championship.

No one scored during the first half of the game. GSU outshot Coastal 10 – 4, however, none of the shots were on goal.

It wasn’t until the end of the second half that GSU’s Matthew Fearnley was able to score on Coastal, making the score 1-0. With less than four minutes left in the game, Coastal needed to score two goals to win or at least one goal to force the game into overtime.

Timm Morten got the ball with two minutes left in the game, and after a successful pass to Sam Snaith, Snaith was able to score, bringing the game to a tie.

No one else was able to score before the game clock ended and the match was forced into its first overtime.

No one was able to score in the first overtime and there was a combined total of two shots, both for GSU. In the second overtime, CCU was able to claim more shots than GSU, but was still unable to score. At the end of the period, the game went into a shoot-out.

GSU made their first shoot and CCU missed their first one. It came down to the final four shots. A miss by GSU’s Frank Rosenwald and Coastal’s Paavo Riihjarvi making his shot allowed Coastal to win, 6-5.

Alberto Ciroi, Coastal Carolina’s goalkeeper was named the most outstanding player for the 2019 Sunbelt Men’s All- Tournament Soccer Team. Ciroi had four saves during the game.

The CCU Men’s Soccer team will travel to Raleigh, NC on Thursday, Nov. 21 to take on North Carolina State University in the 2019 NCAA Division I Men’s Soccer Championship.