Stunned Eagles look to finish up strong
Still smarting from Tuesday night’s controversial overtime defeat, the FGCU Eagles turn their focus back to their final two matches that will take them to the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament.
The Eagles (5-3-3, 3-0-1 A-Sun) travel to USC Upstate (5-4-0, 1-1-0) for their final league match of the regular season at 7 p.m. Saturday. With a win, the Eagles will guarantee themselves at least a share of an unprecedented sixth-straight regular-season conference title. Second-place North Florida (6-5-1, 2-0-1) still has two conference matches left. USC Upstate faces Stetson (4-8-1, 0-3-0) at home on Wednesday.
FGCU lost 2-1 to Florida International (9-4-0) Tuesday night on a controversial goal in overtime.
Deadlocked 1-1 at the end of regulation time, the disputed finish came in the 95th minute. FIU played a ball through to the right wing where Jamar Campion-Hinds received it, but not before the Panthers were ruled offside by the linesman, who stopped along the sideline and held his flag up for several seconds.
The head official did not blow his whistle, and seconds later after most players had stopped or slowed down expecting the offside call, Campion-Hinds passed the ball to an unmarked Darren Rios in the box, who easily one-timed it into the back of the net to everyone’s surprise.
Albert Ruiz scored FGCU’s lone goal on a penalty kick in the 33rd minute. The PK conversion was the fourth of the year for the sophomore who already tied the career program record with four made penalty kicks.
“Unfortunate isn’t even a word I would use to describe the ending,” said Eagles coach Bob Butehorn. “A game with this magnitude didn’t deserve that ending. I think it was just a poor judgement call and it affected 22 guys on the field. Both teams played hard, and the biggest takeaway for our guys is to play through the whistle, but this is certainly a tough one.”