After several years of standing atop the mountain, UMBC discovered what many climbers realize: at some point, you've got to come down.
After four consecutive appearances in the NCAA Tournament and three America East Tournament crowns in four years, the Retrievers' run of success ended Wednesday night with an 11-7 loss to Albany in a conference tournament semifinal at UMBC Stadium.
Finishing at 4-9 – the program's worst record under coach Don Zimmerman since going 3-9 in 1996 – UMBC struggled despite the presence of 16 seniors on the Opening Day roster.
The Retrievers shuffled goalkeepers like a card shark in Atlantic City, could not get consistent production from the second midfield, and bid farewell to senior defenseman and team captain Bobby Atwell, who left the team for undisclosed reasons after being benched for the first quarter against Towson.
Zimmerman, who still has maintained his youthful look despite the losing, said the onus is on the players and coaches to review their efforts and make changes.
"You've got to do some soul-searching, and I think every coach and player on this team has to do some soul-searching," he said. "It wasn't a good year. We played a very difficult schedule early on, but then we were kind of inconsistent as the season progressed. It's a negative that we need to turn into a positive. As a coach, I've got to go back and look at everything that we do, and see if we can't figure a way to turn this thing around. We've had some very good years here. This year was not a good year. But certainly we believe that we can get back to our winning ways, and that's what we'll be working on."
Other notes:
*Named the starting goalie for the April 7th contest against the Tigers and beyond, Adam Cohen seemed to do reasonably well. But in last Saturday's loss to Hartford, the freshman surrendered 14 goals, and although he was marginally better Wednesday night, Cohen finished with just four saves in 50 minutes, 23 seconds of work before getting pulled for senior Kevin Kohri. "Maybe some freshman-itis came out," Zimmerman said. "The stakes get higher as the season wears on, and obviously, this was a do-or-die game. I just felt like he wasn't real crisp in seeing the ball. Goalies are going to make or break you. But you've got to give him credit for a freshman. He came in, and we were bouncing back and forth with our goalkeepers early in the season, but he won the job. He just didn't have a great night tonight. That's going to happen, and he's got to learn from it and hopefully come back next year and be more determined to step in and win a sot and be a solid, consistent goalkeeper for us."
*One of the hallmark of the Retrievers offense under Zimmerman has been an ability to stay unruffled while taking advantage of opportunities. That wasn't the case Wednesday night as the Great Danes employed a zone defense to lock down senior attackman Matt Latham, the team's leader in goals. Albany also pressed UMBC's midfielders and did a good job of either disrupting passing lanes or blocking shots. Only 18 of the Retrievers' 41 shots found their way to the net. "I just think that on offense, we didn't do a really good job of sticking to the game plan and of being patient," Zimmerman said. "We talked about being poised and patient all week, and we didn't. We got away from that, and we started to do our own thing, and we got discombobulated. I don't know if you would call it hitting the panic button, but we just didn't stick to the game plan."
*The Great Danes made it a point not to get hurt by Latham or senior midfielder Kyle Wimer. Latham, who scored six goals in UMBC's 12-7 win between these two teams in the regular season, was shut out for only the second time this season. Wimer did not register a point for the first time in 32 contests. "We played better individual defense," Albany coach Scott Marr said. "We didn't have to slide so much, and when we did have to move and slide to them, we did a good job of covering up inside. We really didn't give Latham much. He had six goals against us last time, and he's killed us pretty much every time that we've played him. This is probably the first time we've held him to limited goals, and I think overall, we just played great team defense."
*Congratulations, Great Danes (5-10). Your reward for beating the Retrievers is a date in the America East Tournament final on Saturday with top-seeded Stony Brook (11-3), which blanked Albany, 15-0, on April 24 – the Seawolves first shutout win in school history. But if you believe Great Danes senior attackman Dave Brock, this is the match-up the team has been eagerly anticipating. "They embarrassed us at home, 15-0, a couple weeks ago, and since then, we've been telling ourselves that we've got to see them again," Brock said. "And it's going to be a whole different story."