Men’s Soccer downs High Point for first conference win
By Mell««a Dcckert
/y-iTFP
UNC'A’s men’s soccer team
picked up their first Big South
Conference win by defeating High
Point f 0 at Cireenwtxxl Field on
Oct. 5.
The Bulldogs and the High Point
Panthers played valiantly through
I scoreless first half,
■'We had played very well
against UNCW the previous
Saturday, we won the Wofford
eame and played well against
Birmingham-Southerni and then
lor some reason we didn't play
ihat well in the first half against
High Point," said Steve Cornish,
men's soccer head coach. “The
■.econd half we got back on track
quite quickly”
UNCA’s Michael Pereira, sopho
more j’oalkeeper, made four saves
in the opening half, managing to
keep High Point off the score-
noard.
"Michael made a big save with
under 10 seconds to go, it was 0-0
it that point and we kind of fell
asleep," Cornish said. “They took
a throw in and the ball bounced in
the penalty area and one of their
players got a head on it. Michael
made this huge save, so we go in
()-() as opposed to 1-0 down.”
The Bulldogs got on the board
e;u-|y in the second half when they
were awarded a direct kick after a
High F’oint foul. Aaron Harcz,
freshman midfielder, took the kick
from 25 y;irds out to give the
Bulldogs a 1-0 lead.
“This goal kind of settled our
nerves a little bit and put the pres-
.siire on them,” Cornish said. “The
first goal is always one you want
to get.”
Asheville then made it 2-0 nine
minutes later when Ryan Haup,
freshman midfielder, scored from
10 yards after receiving a pass
from Chance Lord, freshman mid
fielder. This is Haupt’s second goal
of the season.
“Haupt got a super goal,”
Cornish said. “f)nce the second
goal went in, it was going to be
very difficult for High Point to get
back into it and we kind of did
well in the end defensively.”
AJ Klerekoper, junior midfield
er, put the game away when he
scored from two yards after a pass
from Daniel Bandoly, sophomore
forward.
“Aaron’s goal started it off.
Teams are particularly vulnerable
right after they score, and within
10 minutes, Ryan scored the sec
ond goal, and that really settled
our nerves,” Cornish said. “AJ’s
goal was the icing on the cake."
The Bulldogs lost to the Radford
Highlanders 3-1 Oct, 10 at Patrick
D. Cupp Memorial Stadium at
Radford’s Homecoming in front of
a crowd of 1,750.
“Give them their due; they
played better than we did. They’re
4-0 in the conference for a reason,”
Cornish said. “They’ve been play
ing very well, they’ve beat the
defending champions. Coastal
Ctirolina. earlier in the week so
they’re playing with a lot of confi
dence right now.”
Radford scored only once
throughout the first half, when jun
ior defender Taylor Rowe scored
off a pass from Paul Caruso, soph
omore defender.
“I thought we performed really
Shay Slifko - Staff Photographer
Freshman student. Chance Lord of the UNCA Men's soccer team works on essential skills at practice that helps the team pull off conference
wins. The Bulldogs next home game is on Oct. 17 against Campbell University.
well against them, unfortunately
they scored early,” Cornish said.
“We battled without really getting
much in the way of chances in the
first half.”
Six minutes into the second half
Patrick Colas, senior forward,
scored on a shot from the top of
the box to give Radford a 2-0 lead.
“1 thought we came out from
halftime and settled ourselves and
we had a couple of good opportu
nities,” Cornish said. “Almost
against the run of play, they scored
their second. The timing of their
goals, much like our goals against
High Point, was very good.”
Andres Hernandez, senior mid
fielder, who led the Highlanders in
shots with four, made Radford’s
final goal of the game off a pass
from Fernando Ramos, senior
midfielder.
The Bulldogs refused to allow
for a shutout and at 88:41 minutes
into the game Harcz scored on a
free kick. Harcz shot over the
Highlander’s defensive wall and
into the upper comer, out of reach
of Radford’s senior goalkeeper,
Omar Zinoveev.
“If we could have equalized
them the game may have taken a
whole different path,” Comish
said. “I thought we had enougj
pressure early on in the seconl
half, but they did a very good job
keeping us at bay.”
The Highlanders led the shots on
the goal with 11-6. The two teams
were almost even on comer kicks,
with UNCA holding a 4-3 lead.
Pereira made eight saves, and
Zinoveev had five.
Athlete profile
Athlete focuses on future career
Grant Gilmore
looks ahead to
becoming a
meteorologist
said.
By Jason Lilly
Staff Writer
Senior men’s soccer midfielder
Grant Gilmore may be less visi
ble on the field during game
days this season, but as an
aspiring meteorologist, he appears
regularly on the
“Bulldog Fever”
sports show to
present the
game day
weather forecast
segment.
Gilmore is a
teaching assis
tant for the
meteorology
broadcast class
Grant Gilmore
and said he hopes to become a
morning weather personality on
television after graduation.
“Ideally, I’d like to go out
towards the Midwest, where
there is a little more severe
weather,” Gilmore said.
During the past two years,
Gilmore worked as an intern at
a CBS affiliate in Cincinnati and
said the most important thing he
learned was how much behind
the scenes work goes into a
broadcast.
“Being an intern, I answered
telephone calls from viewers
when there was severe weather.
There’s people calling in all the
time wanting to report stuff, and
there’s older people complaining
the meteorologists are getting on-
air too much,” Gilmore said.
After interacting with on-air
personalities, Gilmore said he
disliked the fact that some will
exhibit a different personality
when in front of the camera
than they do in real life.
“My personality in real life is
who I want to be on television,
because I want to get people to
like me on camera as much as
they do off camera,” Gilmore
Coming to UNCA from
Michigan, Gilmore earned a rep
utation with both his coach and
his fellow players as being a
hard worker.
“I think Grant is one of the
hardest working players we’ve
had on the team over the past
four years,” said Steve Cornish,
men’s soccer head coach.
Gilmore’s family lived in
France for three years while he
was very young, and he said
that playing soccer in Europe
gave him a head start on the
other kids when he returned to
the United States in the third
grade.
He played on club teams while
in high school and said he feels
lucky to have had the opportunity
to play at the collegiate level.
“Sometimes when you’re run
ning around on the field and
complaining, you don’t realize
what a privilege it is to be play
ing at a university and being
Division I in the NCAA,”
Gilmore said.
College life did not start out
so well for Gilmore, because
like many freshmen, he said he
had difficulty adjusting to his
new surroundings.
He had never been to North
Carolina before his first visit to
UNCA, and said he decided to
attend the university because it
is a smaller school where stu
dents can be themselves and
more independent.
Gilmore said he enjoys school
now, but during his freshman
year he wanted to transfer to a
university closer to home.
“I was counting off the days
on the calendar until I could go
home for break,” Gilmore said.
Gilmore has seen fewer playing
minutes this season than last,
partly because of the team’s cur
rent defensive strategy that only
employs three midfielders,
according to AJ Klerekoper, jun
ior midfielder.
Klerekoper says that Gilmore
continues to contribute his inten
sity in practice.
“He’s still a big motivation to
the team even if he’s not on the
Yj
He ’s still a big motivation to
the team, even if he’s not on
the field.
AJ Klerekoper
junior midfielder
field,” Klerekoper said.
Gilmore said he continues to
try and find ways to help the
team despite seeing little action
on game day.
“If I’m not contributing to the
team during the game, then I
work harder in practice to make
the player starting ahead of me
to earn their spot,” Gilmore said.
Gilmore suffered an athletic
setback this spring when he tore
a ligament in his knee on his
first snowboarding experience.
He said he was initially
unaware of the extent of the
damage and continued to play in
the spring season for six weeks
until an MRI revealed the tear.
“Originally, they told me I’d
be out for four to six months, but
I was back playing at full
strength in three months,”
Gilmore said.
The injury required Gilmore to
have surgery in March. After
the surgery, the rehabilitation
process would keep him working
with a trainer about four hours
each day to strengthen the liga
ments.
“Basically, I had teach the
muscles in my right leg how to
run again,” Gilmore said.
Gilmore maintains a positive
attitude about the experience,
though.
“If anything, it has been kind
of a blessing because it has
made me work harder to gel
back to where I think I could
have been if I didn’t have the
surgery,” Gilmore said.
Teammates also said they rip
the aspiring on-air meteorologist
about how he pays close atten
tion to his appearance, and is
always impeccably dressed.
“He has two different kinds of hair
gels in his locker, and he has a
shaved head,” one teammate said.
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