From the Bench... Oct. 10, 2002 – Fullerton, Calif.
Coach Al Mistri:
On last Sunday's SDSU match (1-0 loss): "We continued down that dangerous
path of creating numerous scoring opportunities and not being able to
finish them. They scored on the only real chance they had until the end
of the match when we projected forward and they could have won 3-0. The
truth of the matter is, we pretty much were in control of the game. We
had more chances than should be necessary to win a game.
"And that's a very big concern. We are entering the league portion
of our schedule and we have not been able to consistently fix that problem.
In addition, because of yellow cards received in San Diego, David Dischner
and Mitch Wagner can't play in the opener at UC Santa Barbara, and Adriano
Lima suffered a severe ankle sprain in practice Wednesday and is out several
weeks, so we are clearly in a very dangerous situation.
"It's becoming a larger and larger issue that we are missing three
key people who are part of our team -- Marco Rodriguez and Ignacio Cid
because of eligibility problems and Gordon Kljestan, who is not yet back
from a July knee operation.
"The future looks difficult, but we will maintain a 'can-do' attitude.
As far as I'm concerned, our record today is 0-0. I've had experience
here with two different types of teams. In 1999, we were 8-0 entering
league play and didn't go to the playoffs (finished 14-5). In 1986 we
were 2-9-2 when league play started but we won the PAA championship and
went to the playoffs (finished 8-11-2). So as you can see, there's something
to be played out. But I fully understand that we are not improving as
rapidly as we could, should or ought to be, so every game is do or die."
