Wittenberg Gets Key Tie With Wooster

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio - Finishing in a tie may be like "kissing your sister," but Saturday's smooch was one of the finest the Wittenberg Tigers have ever experienced. With a 1-1 tie on Homecoming and Reunion Weekend with visiting Wooster, the Tigers finished in a fourth-place tie in the final regular season North Coast Athletic Conference standings.

By virtue of tiebreaker criteria - a head-to-head victory over co-fourth place finisher Denison - the Tigers earned a berth in the NCAC Tournament. Wittenberg, now 7-5-6 overall and 4-2-3 in the NCAC, will make their first appearance ever in the six-year-old event with the tallest of tasks, a road game against top-seeded Ohio Wesleyan, the second-ranked team in the nation with an 18-0 record. The two teams square off on Wednesday at 7 p.m., just over three weeks after the Tigers gave OWU one of its stiffest challenges in a 1-0 Bishop win, also in Delaware.

Against Wooster, the final statistics of this typical NCAC slugfest show just how even the two teams were. Both teams managed 11 shots in the game, but just a single Wooster shot was all either team could manage in a pair of tight overtime periods. In doubling the previous school record of three ties in a season and equalling the NCAA Division III record for ties in a season with six, the Tigers gained more than they have in nearly a decade.

After a scoreless first half, Wooster got on the board in the 61st minute with a goal by 2004 Offensive NCAC Player of the Year Brian Conaway. But Wittenberg, with the season on the line, showed some moxie, responding with a goal 11 minutes later by senior Levi Van Reeth, whose career could have ended with a loss Saturday.

In the final home game for seniors Brian Mutton and Van Reeth and juniors Sebastian and Eduardo Missura, who are planning to finish their engineering degrees at another school over the next two years, the Tigers picked up six clutch saves from junior goalkeeper Adam Horrocks. The two teams combined for a whopping 38 fouls in the game, but only a pair of yellow cards were handed out by game's end.