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Fort Lewis’ amazing 2009 statistics
Fort Lewis College defender Kyle Wood, front, tries to strip Regis University’s James Copeland of the ball. (photo by George Tanner/ColoradoSoccerNow.com)
In honor of Fort Lewis College winning its second NCAA Division II championship in men’s soccer, The Tuesday List is going to look at some of the amazing statistics the Raiders, er, Skyhawks compiled this season.
Fort Lewis defeated Lees-McRae 1-0 on Saturday at Pepin Stadium in Tampa, Florida, to claim the national title, the second in the history of the program and the first for Coach Oige Kennedy, who took over the team after former Colorado Rapids coach Tim Hankinson resigned to take a job in India.
Here’s a story about the game on the FLC Web site. It was written by the NCAA and misspells Kennedy’s first name. Here’s a story on the Lees-McRae Web site that is a little more Bobcat-centric.
Fort Lewis finished 21-1 overall, 13-0 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. For a look at game-by-game results, head on over to our Schedules/Results page.
The record is amazing on its own, but some of the stats the Skyhawks put up are astounding. For example …
In 2009, FLC gave up four goals in the final 45 minutes. That’s the season total. All games combined. Four second-half goals all year. Four.
The Skyhawks held their opponent scoreless in 11 of 22 games.
The average score of a Fort Lewis game was more than 4 to less than 1. Yes, Fort Lewis scored an average of 4.26 goals per game and allowed 0.51. In 22 games, FLC scored 92 times and allowed only 11 goals.
OK, that’s impressive. But let’s put it in this context: While scoring 92 goals, Fort Lewis allowed 110 shots (that’s no typo: 110 shots). And only 53 of those shots were on goal. So, in essence, had the Skyhawks played with 11 field players and no goalkeeper, they would’ve allowed 53 goals – and STILL would’ve outscored the opposition 92-53. Yeah, that’s a fantasy scenario, but it illustrates how crazily lopsided those statistics are.
But this might be my favorite stat of all: The Skyhawks drew an average of 779 fans to their home matches. Their opponents averaged 189 fans when FLC came to town. So 11,683 fans for 15 home games. But when the eventual national champs came to visit, their opponents managed 189 spectators (and many of them were Fort Lewis fans).
OK, so enough gushing. Let’s look at the final individual scoring stats for Fort Lewis.
Player, goals, assists, points
Euan Purcell 19, 3, 41
Tom Settle 8, 16, 32
David Barden 10, 5, 25
Joe Barnd 10, 3, 23
Thomas Hoang 7, 6, 20
Abdel Becerra 8, 1, 17
Dimo Krymanidis 4, 9, 17
Jamie Cunningham 5, 2, 12
Jeff Jennings 3, 6, 12
Fabian Kling 5, 1, 11
Keane Hamilton 4, 3, 11
Sam Morris 1, 8, 10
Byron Cephers 3, 3, 9
Kyle Wood 1, 3, 5
Cory Dean 2, 0, 4
Berekk Blackwell 1, 0, 2
RJ Parke 0, 0, 0
One more thing: What about that one loss? Who’d Fort Lewis lose to? How did that happen?
In mid-September, the Skyhawks piled into a bus and drove 17 hours to Austin, Texas, only to learn that their Friday game against St. Edwards was canceled because of rain.
So because of the field conditions in Austin, the Skyhawks would have to drive to San Antonio, the home pitch of ninth-ranked Incarnate Word, if they wanted to play. They did.
The match included a disputed goal by Incarnate Word and two shots off the crossbar in the final 10 minutes by Fort Lewis. In the end, it was a 2-1 loss in the fourth match of the year.
Fort Lewis didn’t lose again. And the rest is NCAA history.
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