From the Bench... Oct. 1, 2003– Fullerton, Calif.
Coach Al Mistri:
""I think we are very well prepared for the Big West Conference
schedule. It's the hardest it's ever been, which is good for us. We played
nine games in the Spring and had a 6-3 record. We played nine games in
Italy and went 5-3-1. We've played nine games in the season and are 4-4-1.
And now we have the 10 most important games in recent memory.
"Going into our schedule, being 4-4-1 at this point would have been
very appealing. But after the fact, I now feel we could have or should
have won two more games. We open at Cal Poly on a field which has been
very difficult for us to play on. It's narrow and bumpy and their style
of play is conducive to those conditions. We anticipate a very difficult
game.
"Health wise, we are in pretty good shape aside the ordinary bumps
and bruises. Omar Bywaters began running on Tuesday, at a jog, for the
first time since his concussion against UCLA. We hope to bring him quickly
up to speed if he is cleared on Wednesday.
(on finally winning a road match)
"Mentally, Sunday boosted us up. Not so much that we won, because
our quality of play away from home has been decent. It was more coming
back from the loss to Florida International. We didn't play particularly
well... we couldn't muster the energy it took FIU is worthy of its ranking
(No. 16 in NSCAA poll this week). It's a much better team than Stanford
or California.
"Florida Atlantic was a very similar team, but we were pretty much
in control of the match. We made a hideous mistake in the beginning to
give them a goal but then we scored 3 goals. In the second half, sirens
blew and they stopped the match because of lightning warnings. It was
hot and humid outside and they hustled us into a cool room for 30 minutes.
We came back out and re-started the game cold, without warming up, and
we were very sluggish. They pressured us and scored on a penalty kick
that made things interesting, especially when we were playing a man down
after Yaron Shlomi got a red card in the 73rd minute. We didn't think
it was an offense that merited a red card."
