The entire season was on the line. It was the perfect script. Final game of the year, on home turf, tie game in overtime. It was literally do-or-die for the Billikens. Win or tie, Saint Louis University was headed to the conference tournament with a chance to defend their Atlantic 10 title. Lose, and the season would end as disappointing as it started, full of “almost,” “maybes” and “not-quites.”
In golden goal overtime, one mistake can end it all. In SLU’s case, one mistake could have – and by all means probably should have – ended the season. In Sunday’s match, deadlocked at 2-2 after the Bills came from behind in the second half, a UMass attacker squeezed his way past the final two SLU defenders. Another attacker found the back door, sliding behind the last line of defense. There stood two Minutemen, within 10 feet of the goal, nothing standing between them and trip to the A-10 tournament. Except Mark Pais.
Pais, the 6’4” sophomore goalkeeper who wears a clear mask on his face, charged Chris Roswess, who came head on. Pais went to his knee to stop Roswess from shooting. He did not see Bryant Craft, who had snuck up behind him. Roswess did. As he crossed the pass to Craft on the left side of the box, Pais turned from his knee and realized he had only seconds – if that – to save the season.
“Without even thinking, I just got up and got across as fast as I possibly could,” Pais said. “I extended as much as I could. It was just instinct. You have to put your body in the way.”
He did. The shot hit him right in the facemask.
Earning the battle scars
Pais wears that facemask because of an injury sustained over the summer, while working a soccer camp in St. Louis.
“I hurt myself while doing a demo of that exact same play,” he said.
In the drill, Pais would charge the first attacker, who came towards him head on. After that attacker passed to his teammate, who was waiting near the goalpost just to the left, Pais would then have to scramble back to defend an essentially-empty net beind him.
“I was supposed to be showing these kids how to defend this type of attack, but I got scored on every time,” Pais said. “So finally, I just decided, ‘you know, I have to just lay it all out there and dive all-out for this thing.’
“Next thing you know, there’s a pole in my face.”
Pais dove straight into the goalpost. Three days before preseason practices began, the Billiken goalkeeper was bleeding and broken, unsure about where his season would go.
“They designed the facemask for me, and I was back on the field again within a few weeks,” Pais said. He has worn the mask all season. Craft’s shot tested its durability.
On the line
Pais’s block literally saved the season. Six minutes into overtime, if that shot went in, it would have rocketed UMass to a victory and sent SLU packing. Instead, the game ended in a 2-2 tie, and SLU earned the final point needed to secure the fifth spot out of six in this weekend’s Atlantic 10 tournament.
But Pais will say that he was not the only hero of Sunday’s win. After dropping into a hole late, the Bills found themselves down 2-0 with only 20 minutes to play.
In the 74th minute, sophomore Alex Sweetin played a cross into the box for junior Alex Johnston, who flicked it in with his head to cut the deficit in half.
Just six minutes later, freshman Sito Sasieta got his head on one as well, scoring his first goal of the season off a Mike Roach assist.
Sasieta’s first career goal could not have been timelier. It tied the game at 2 and ultimately clinched the playoff spot for SLU.
“I’m very proud of the guys,” head coach Mike McGinty said after the game. “It is a testament to how they have played all year. They battled and stuck together. In the last 20 minutes, when it looked like there was nothing left to play for, they found a way and battled back.”
The Billikens finish the regular season with an 8-6-3 overall record, and a 5-3-1 mark in conference play. They also finished the year on a five game undefeated streak, earning four wins and a tie in their last five matches, all at Robert R. Hermann Stadium.
“We had a really strong ending to the year,” junior Mike Roach said after Sunday’s match.
“We’ve gotten healthy, we’ve gotten on a roll, and we’ve starting producing offensively.”
The Bills netted 11 goals in their last five matches. “That’s pretty good,” McGinty says. “We are playing our best soccer of the year. We are definitely playing better than we did in August, September and October.”
But as freshman Christian Briggs said last week: “It’s how we play in November that counts.”
A-10 tournament looms
SLU now takes their undefeated streak to Charlotte, N.C., for the Atlantic 10 Tournament.
The Billikens enter the weekend seeded fifth and will open with a first round match against 4-seeded St. Bonaventure on Thursday.
The Billikens and the Bonnies met earlier this year, in an overtime match in Olean, N.Y. After a scoreless 90 minutes, SBU’s Nicholas Perillo netted the game winner past SLU keeper Nick Shackelford and dropped the Billikens bellow .500 on the season.
Thursday, the two teams meet almost exactly one month later, this time with tournament implications on the line.
“We are certainly ready to face St. Bonaventure again,” McGinty said. “We have a lot of momentum right now, and the challenge is to take that momentum into the post season.”
“We are playing our best soccer right now, and our team has come together at the right time,” Roach added.
The Billikens are the defending Atlantic 10 Champions.
SLU beat Dayton in the Conference Championship game last year, a victory that earned SLU its record 46th NCAA Tournament appearance. Dayton did not earn a spot in this year’s tournament.
Charlotte is the tournament’s top seed, after posting an 8-1-0 conference record. LaSalle, the No. 2 seed, will also receive a first round bye.
The 3-seed Temple faces 6-seeded Xavier on Thursday, just before the Billikens and Bonnies go head-to-head.
With a win, SLU could draw Charlotte or LaSalle in the second round.
“We do have our goals, but we are taking things one game at a time,” McGinty said. “Our message has been very clear: it all starts with St. Bonaventure.”
And none of it would be possible without Pais’s save.
“We’re coming off our best games of the year,” Pais said. “We’ve got a lot of momentum, we’re feeling confident in how we’re playing, and we know we have what it takes to win games.”
The Bills showed that as the season wound down at Hermann Stadium.
Now, in taking their talents to North Carolina, the Bills set out to defend the crown they earned last year.
What more could you ask from such a storied and historic program?
