On a chilly night in Omaha, Nebraska, UMBC's 2014 men's soccer squad reached giddy heights that a Division I team in any sport at the university has never touched before: the Final Four of a national collegiate tournament.
After 110 hard-fought and scoreless minutes against the No. 12-ranked Creighton Bluejays, the Retrievers snatched a 4-3 win on penalty kicks.
UMBC's road warriors traveled to four different stadiums and won four straight games against nationally-ranked opponents to earn their place among the elite teams in college soccer.
The Retrievers played with immense composure throughout the first 90 minutes of the game, shutting down a Creighton squad previously unbeaten on its home field in NCAA tournament history. The two ten-minute overtime sessions were a study in contrasts. The Retrievers came close to scoring on a few occasions in the first overtime, while Creighton nearly snatched a victory in the second overtime period.
With a place in the NCAA College Cup on the line in a penalty kick shootout, standout sophomore goalkeeper
Billy Heavner made an impressive stop on the first Creighton attempt and watched the second Bluejay attempt hit a goalpost. The Retrievers then scored on four of their five penalty kicks, with senior midfielder
Mamadou Kansaye, senior defender
Jordan Becker and junior forward/midfielder
Michael Scott scoring penalties to set up a winning conversion by senior forward
Kay Banjo.
Heavner was presented with the inaugural America East Elite 18 award, which recognizes student-athletes competing in conference championship matches who possess high academic and athletic achievements. In addition to being one of the catalysts on UMBC's amazing postseason run, Heavner also maintained a 4.0 GPA as a major in financial economics.
Head Coach Pete Caringi was selected NSCAA National Coach of the Year.
The 1999 squad finished 19-0-1 and would have given the 2014 team a run for their money.
Sophomore midfielder P.J. Wakefield, who had entered the game for the first time less than a minute earlier, blasted a cross from Ty Engram past Mount St. Mary's goalie Rob Ray with just over 11 minutes to play to lift top-seeded UMBC to its first-ever Northeast Conference Championship with a 2-1 victory over #2 seed Mount St. Mary's. The tournament was contested at UMBC Soccer Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland.
The Mount struck first off a counterattack, as senior midfielder Simon Hodkin converted Marty Stiteler's low cross to the far post past UMBC netminder Brian Rowland at 22:41 of the first half.
UMBC, which outshot the Mount 10-2 in the opening stanza, kept the pressure on before converting at 41:01 when Ty Engram's cross resulted in a scramble in front of the net before the ball was banged in by Tournament Most Valuable Player Pat Halter to even the score at 1-1.
Halter, who did not score a goal during the regular season, recorded two goals and two assists in UMBC's 5-0 semifinal win over Monmouth and tallied a tournament series-high eight points.
UMBC controlled the tempo of the contest throughout much of the game as the Mount was forced to rely on quick counterattacks to generate offense. For the match, UMBC outshot the Mount, 19-6.
The Retrievers won a school record 13 consecutive matches and were ranked #11 by Soccer America and #19 by the NSCAA.
UMBC defeated Lafayette, the Patriot League winner, in an NCAA Play-In match before falling to Duke in the NCAA opening round.
