Unlike the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 seeds in the Women’s College Bowl, the top seed in the men’s semifinals is No. 15 NC State. Furman is ranked No. 16, and Washington and St. Louis are unseeded.
That meant some serious upsets for those four teams to come within two wins of the national championship game. Let’s break down how Furman and Washington ended up in Carey.
Furman (16-1-5)
The The Paladins are making their first Men’s College Bowl appearance in program history after defeating No. 8 Portland in the quarterfinals on Braden Dunham’s 75th-minute long-range strike. Dunham dribbled past midfield and fired a left-footed shot into the top right corner from nearly 40 yards. With this, the Portland goalkeeper won 1:0.
But the real drama for Furman came in the third round, as top seed Vermont pushed the Hofstra Paladins to the brink of elimination. Tied at 1-1 at halftime, Furman scored back-to-back goals in the 76th and 79th minutes to take a comfortable 3-1 lead with 10 minutes remaining. The Pride wasted no time in responding, scoring in quick succession even more than the Paladins, the first in the 80th minute and the second in the 81st minute. Hofstra’s two field goals were just 68 seconds apart.
The third-round battle ended with a 5-4 Furman penalty kick and a Hofstra victory in one of the most entertaining games of the entire tournament.
Washington (14-6-2)
The Huskies are making their second appearance in the Men’s College Bowl, their first coming in 2021 with a 2-0 loss to Clemson in the national championship game.
Washington advanced to Cary with wins over No. 4 Maryland and No. 5 SMU, but there were closer calls against Oregon State in the first round and Stanford in the 12th round in the third round.
The Beavers scored in the third minute to send the Huskies down 1-0 in the first round. But Washington tied the score early in the second period before the former Pac-12 rivals traded goals in the final 15 minutes to force overtime. Also in 2OT, Richie Aman scored in the Huskies’ goal in the 104th minute to avoid a penalty and give UW the lead.
In the third period, it looked like Washington was headed for overtime before Zach Ramsey passed to Charlie Kosakoff to score in the 88th minute of the Huskies’ offense.
The Huskies returned to the Men’s College Bowl for the second time in five years with their most comfortable win in the quarterfinals, defeating No. 4 seed Maryland 3-1.
Leave a Reply