Collegiate Times

Redshirt junior midfielder Charlie Campbell chases an Akron player. The zips maintained their No. 1 ranking despite Tech's best effort.

The opportunity to play spoiler and massively impact the college soccer landscape eluded the Virginia Tech men's soccer team Tuesday night as the Hokies lost to No. 1 Akron 2-0 at Thompson Field.

"We've come a long way (since the beginning of the season)," head coach Michael Brizendine said. "Defensively, although we gave up two goals, we're starting to figure some things out. Akron is the best team in the country and I thought we put them under some pressure at various points of the game, but we just weren't able to sustain any momentum."

Tech played the Zips scoreless for the first 36 minutes of play before highly-touted Akron forward Teal Bunbury netted a ball from 40 feet out, giving the visitors a 1-0 lead going into halftime.

Bunbury was assisted by teammate Kofi Sarkodie, who lobbed the ball over the Tech defense to his teammate who in turn found himself all alone with the Hokies' senior goalkeeper Stefan Caulfield.

"He's extremely talented," Brizendine said of Bunbury. "I could say that for a lot of their players though. They move well and are very technical. Their coach has done a very good job of recruiting excellent players."

Tech was unable to produce a successful offensive attack on the Zips' defense, which limited the Hokies to four shots in the first half.

"Even after we went down a goal, I thought we responded well," Brizendine said. "We kept them off the board early in the second half and kept our composure."

The Zips sealed the victory in the 80th minute when midfielder Blair Gavin scored top-shelf on a penalty kick, which resulted from a foul by the Hokies' senior defender Alexander Baden.

"Obviously it was tough to garner any momentum after the second goal," Brizendine said. "It's very difficult to get anything going against a team like Akron that late into the game. We were worn out by that point as well. We put all of our energy into trying to score an equalizing goal. When they scored again, that was really the dagger."

Akron out-shot the Hokies 18-9 in the contest. Junior defender James Shupp led Tech with two shots.

"I think we had ample opportunities," Brizendine said. "I was happy with those. We just didn't finish any of them."

Tech committed 11 fouls to the visitors' five. Redshirt junior midfielder Charlie Campbell and freshman defender David Fiorello each received yellow cards.

Making his second consecutive start between the pipes for the Hokies, Caulfield collected six saves, doubling his total for the season.

In his second contest since being regulated to play in the field, goalkeeper-turned-forward Brendan Dunn notched one shot on the night.

"If I don't like how any of our players are playing, I'll pull them off. I thought (Caulfield and Dunn) both played very well."

The unanimously-voted top-ranked team in the nation made the nearly five-hour-and-45-minute drive from Akron, Ohio, to Blacksburg accompanied by nearly 50 student supporters.

For his 10th shutout of the season, Akron goalkeeper David Meves saved three shots-on-goal. The freshman leads the nation averaging 0.19 goals allowed per game.

Currently, Akron, now 12-0-0, is averaging three goals scored per game while allowing two goals all season. As a team, Akron leads the Mid-American Conference in nearly every offensive category. The Hokies have lost their last four contests and are now 3-7-2 on the season.

"It doesn't feel like we've lost four in a row," Brizendine said. "The effort has been excellent, and we've really come together. I thought in our last contest we made great strides, although I wasn't pleased with the result. We still have some very important games, especially in our conference. I think we are going to do some things.

"It doesn't matter if you are winning games outside of the conference," Brizendine said. "All our eggs are in that ACC basket. We are going to attack the conference, try to get into the middle of the standings, and get into a good position for the conference tournament. At this point, if we're going to make the NCAA tournament, we've got to win our conference tournament."

Tech returns to conference play when it hosts in-state rival No. 13 Virginia Saturday night.