Tech men's soccer set for RSC Tournament

Gary Fauber, The Register-Herald, Beckley, W.Va.
·3 min read

Nov. 4—A lot of people would like to go back in time, for myriad reasons.

WVU Tech men's soccer coach Oliver Hewitt-Fisher isn't asking much. Just four years, to a time when things weren't going as well as he might have liked, but the ending came out perfectly.

It was 2017, and he was in his first season with the Golden Bears. They struggled to an 8-10-4 record, but were 6-2-1 in River States Conference play, good enough for the fourth seed and a first-round home game in the postseason tournament.

And things worked out from there.

"That's kind of where my mind's at right now, hoping we can replicate that season," Hewitt-Fisher said.

They have their chance.

The Golden Bears are once again the No. 4 seed and will host No. 5 Saint Mary-of-the-Woods in the River States Conference Tournament Saturday at 5 p.m. at the YMCA Paul Cline Memorial Youth Sports Complex. A couple hours after four high school state champions are crowned, Tech will get to work on trying to return to the national tournament.

This season has been a work in progress for the Golden Bears (9-6-2 overall, 5-2-2 conference), who are a largely young team. Added to that was the challenge of getting started after a crazy 2020 season that didn't end until April of this year because of the pandemic.

"Yeah, some of the boys came back out of shape, and then we just had a very young team, a lot of new faces," Hewitt-Fisher said. "We probably had 20 new freshmen on the roster, so it was getting those kids meshed together and kind of getting them to know the returning players and the returning players getting to know the freshmen."

Saint Mary-of-the-Woods is in its inaugural season in the RSC. Tech met the Pomeroys (8-4-2, 6-3-1) on Oct. 14 and battled to a 2-2 tie after two overtimes.

"They're a good team. They've got a few good individual players," Hewitt-Fisher said. "They look to get numbers behind the ball and play on the counter attack. So I expect us to have a lot of possession in the game. When we played them two weeks ago, we missed several chances to win the game. Hopefully we can put those away on Saturday."

Junior forward Dixie Davis leads Tech with five goals and two assists. Keeper Lucas Rivera Paramio has seen the bulk of the minutes in goal and is allowing just 1.38 goals per game.

As for 2017, Tech upset No. 1 Rio Grande in the semifinals en route to the championship. A win Saturday would set up a semifinal meeting with that same top-seeded RedStorm.

"We might be the underdogs going into the conference tournament," Hewitt-Fisher said, "but I think we have more than enough qualities to cause an upset."

Email: gfauber@register-herald.com; follow on Twitter @GaryFauber