Junior David Lily was recognized as the 2005 Appalachian Conference Player of the Year
-Photo contributed by Ryan C. Harris
Troy Childress
Reporter
November 11, 2005
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Junior David Lily was recognized as the 2005 Appalachian Conference Player of the Year -Photo contributed by Ryan C. Harris |
The Milligan men’s soccer team ended its playoff run on Nov. 4 with a 4-2 loss against top seeded King College. The loss ends Milligan’s season with an overall record of 10-9-1 and 5-2-1 in the conference.
“We picked the worst time of the year to play our worst soccer,” said junior David Lilly, the team’s captain.
While the Buffs were confident going into the game, they lost the edge needed to defeat King.
The men were only down 1-0 in the first half despite poor play.
They dominated the start of the second half, but King was able to continue scoring, knocking the wind out of the Buffs’ sail.
“The boys played like they did not want to win,” said junior Joel Wanyoike. “It is like they were tired.”
The Buffs’ two goals came from sophomore Stuart Makinson and Lilly.
“The goal Lilly scored came easily from what we have always practiced,” Wanyoike said.
Giving up bad goals has been a struggle for Milligan all season. In the game against King they continued with this struggle.
“We kept striving for goals but we gave away bad goals, and you can’t do that when you are struggling to generate stuff in the attack,” Lilly said.
“You always want to go deeper in the post season, but I’m proud of the season and the work that we put in,” said coach Dave Dixon. “We are going to be a very good team in the near future.”
The loss ended the hopes for the men to advance to the NAIA Region XII Tournament.
While the season was not as successful as the Buffs hoped for, it did end with a few highlights. Lilly was named the 2005 Appalachian Athletic Conference Player of the Year, and several of his teammates were named to the AAC All-Conference Team.
“I put a lot of work in this summer and up until the end of the season, so it feels good for it to be recognized,” said Lilly. “Usually the kind of work I do in a game doesn’t really get recognition but this shows that people do appreciate it.”
Lilly, also selected as a first-team All-Conference player, ended the season with 14 goals and seven assists.
Other All-Conference players were sophomore Kyle Wilcox who was selected to the second team and junior Justin Fuller who made the third team.
Junior Caleb Bollman, Fuller and Makinson were chosen for the Academic All-Conference team as well.