Hawks Fall to Cal Poly Pomona in National Semifinal

The dream of reaching its first NCAA national championship game came to an end for Rockhurst Thursday night in Pensacola, Florida. The fifth-ranked Hawks fell to 17th-ranked Cal Poly Pomona, 1-0, in the NCAA Division II national semifinals at Ashton Brosnaham Sports Complex.

Cal Poly Pomona scored the winning goal in the 84th minute on a shot in front of the goal by Alexander Turkson off a corner kick. The Broncos dropped the final game, 4-0, in the Division II national championship on Saturday in Pensacola to No. 1 ranked Pfeiffer University. Rockhurst ended the season with an 18-2-3 record.

"Congratulations to Cal Poly, they played very very well," said Rockhurst coach Tony Tocco after Thursday’s game. "They did a great job against us tonight. Our players gave what they had tonight. I hated to see it end on this note for one reason. I think we're a better team than what we showed, but maybe Cal Poly had a lot to do with that.

"I think our effort was good, our execution was not very good and that's the other part of the game. I think we gave a great effort in how we played the game but our execution was not what we had been doing throughout the season. I never question my players playing hard, but the other part of the game, I don't think we did very very well," added Tocco.

Pomona outshot the Hawks, 13-9.Rockhurst keeper Logan Feldmann made six saves, while Pomona keeper Fernando Pablo Quevedo stopped four Rockhurst shots.

"To win games, you need to play a full 90, in the second half I think we picked it up," said junior defender Paul Dean, "but like Coach Tocco said, we needed to execute, but one thing I think we can all agree on is we left it all out on the field at the end of the day."