Box Score WILLIAMSTOWN, MA—In his 36 years as a coach of the Williams men's soccer team, Mike Russo never stopped looking forward. Nary a postgame interview concluded without some mention of the next game on the schedule, or the next year on the horizon. Wins were never enough. Losses were only temporary.
Today, after a late strike from Sam White lifted Bowdoin to a 2-1 win over Russo's Ephs in the NESCAC quarterfinals, Russo again began looking forward again. "We just have to…" Russo began.
And then he stopped, and paused. Then began again: "Hopefully the younger guys coming back will remember this and pull together for next year."
In omitting the "we," Russo had remembered the fact that is impossible to forget: After 438 wins, 33 straight winning seasons, 18 NCAA tournament appearances, six NESCAC championships and one national title, Mike Russo has retired as head coach of the Ephs. "I will miss this," said Russo, struggling to find the right words after the game. "But it has sunk in."
Barring a run to the national tournament that looked increasingly unlikely as the season wore on, Russo's career was always going to end like this: with Ephs splayed out across the field in disbelief, while another squad celebrated its chance to fight another day. For their part, the Polar Bears' (9-6-1) picked up their first-ever playoff victory over the Ephs (8-6-2) in six postseason matchups dating back to 1988, and earned them their second straight trip to the NESCAC semifinals.
After the Polar Bears play for much of the second half, White gave the Polar Bears their second, and decisive, lead of the day with a brilliant curling shot into the left corner from 25 yards out. The goal was White's team-leading fifth of the season, and there was little that Williams goalie Christian Alcorn—or any goalie, for that matter—could have done to stop it.
Bowdoin earned its initial advantage early in the first half with a more opportunistic finish, as Nabil Odulate pounced on a wayward first touch from an Eph defender following a corner and ripped a shot into the side netting for his first goal of the year. Odulate's goal, in addition to breaking the ice on the scoreboard, also gave the Polar Bears their first shot on goal of the game, a symptom of the tense but nervous stalemate to which both sides played in the opening 45 minutes.
The Ephs responded well following the goal, taking just over four minutes to generate an equalizer. Michael Madding began the play by sending a leading ball to the right wing for Malcolm Moutenot. There, the sophomore midfielder accelerated around a defender and drove straight to the goal line before sending a precise pass back across the goal mouth for Matt Muralles, who one-timed a shot straight over keeper Gus Van Siclen for his first goal in exactly seven weeks to draw Williams even.
From that point on, most of the game's chances belonged to Bowdoin, thanks in no small part to the work done by speedy midfielder Hunter Miller and forward Connor Keefe deep in Williams territory. In all, the Polar Bears forced Alcorn to make four saves, including two exceptional back-to-back stops with six minutes left to play that kept the Ephs in the game. "[Bowdoin] had the wind at their backs a little bit and that made a difference," said Russo. "They were pushing the ball around and connected very well. Hats off to them."
For their part, though, the Ephs generated few chances despite controlling much of the conservative first half. Their best shot at an equalizer in the game's waning moments came in the 83rd minute, when Van Siclen, who made two saves, failed to clearly handle Chris Seitz's cross from near the right corner flag. But the Bowdoin netminder, aided by a fortuitous bounce off one of his teammates, gobbled up the loose ball before Muralles or Zach Grady could find it.
The Polar Bears will now face Middlebury, which got past Wesleyan on penalty kicks, in next Saturday's second NESCAC semifinal, following host Amherst's matchup against Connecticut College.
Meanwhile, after falling in the quarters for the first time since 2010, Williams will wonder what could have been. They started the season with three convincing wins and were ranked No. 3 in the country; then, all at once, everything went sideways. Outside of standout striker Zach Grady, who led the NESCAC with 10 goals, the Ephs struggled mightily in the attacking third and scored just 14 goals in their final 13 games as season-long injuries to Mohammed Rashid and Jonathan Westling sapped the Ephs of much of their offensive dynamism.
Still, in a season characterized by tremendous parity within the NESCAC—as exemplified by Conn's upset over first-place Tufts earlier today—anything seemed possible, right up until it wasn't anymore. "It's been an up-and-down season and I'm very proud of our guys," said Russo. "We fought and battled, but it wasn't quite enough."
Now, Russo—who, with a final record of 438-116-60, has won the 10th-most DIII men's soccer games of all time—has hung 'em up for good. Well, sort of. "I'll still coach with a club or something somewhere," said Russo.
"I have loved every second of this," said Russo, gesturing at his players, the field, the mountains, everything. "And I will miss it big-time."
