When Maryland men’s soccer midfielder Amar Sejdic drilled a penalty kick past Indiana goalkeeper Trey Muse, he shook a clenched fist and jogged back to his teammates who were lined across midfield with their arms around each other’s shoulders.
Sejdic’s conversion in the first round of the Big Ten semifinal shootout marked the team’s first penalty kick of the season. Four other Terps waited patiently for their high-pressure opportunity to shoot with a trip to the championship on the line.
Maryland simulated shootouts in practice and had felt confident in them entering postseason play. However, the Terps failed on two of their final four tries, and goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair made just one stop, leaving Maryland short of a conference championship appearance with a 4-3 loss in postseason soccer’s heartbreaking decider.
“PKs are not fun to take. It’s not a true picture of a team or how people played, so it stinks,” defender Chase Gasper said. “Credit to every guy that stepped up and had the courage to take those. Unfortunately, we didn’t make all of them.”
[Read more: Indiana beats Maryland men’s soccer on penalty kicks in Big Ten tourney semis]
Maryland narrowly maintained a 1-1 tie through two overtime periods, and coach Sasho Cirovski said he felt extremely lucky his team even forced the shootout. Indiana outshot the Terps 8-1 in extra time, peppering shots at a worn-out defense that was missing half of its regular starters.
But after the final whistle blew to end double overtime, Maryland and Indiana — two of the 20 teams in the country that had not yet attempted a penalty kick — entered the unpredictable tiebreaker.
“We tried to simulate penalt[y] kicks at the end of a training session when they’re fatigued and tired,” Cirovski said. “We replicate exactly the way it is in a game. We’d been hitting them really well and we were confident.”
[Read more: Before he became a leader for Maryland soccer, Paul Bin had to confront his depression]
Maryland had practiced against St. Clair’s 6-foot-4 frame, which gave its penalty takers confidence to face Muse, the Big Ten goalkeeper of the year.
“Over practice, everybody that took penalties did really well with them,” sophomore Ben Di Rosa said. “Dayne is obviously very good at saving penalties, so that presents an interesting dynamic in practice.”
Gasper, who missed his attempt in last season’s shootout loss to Albany in the NCAA tournament, changed the direction he shot Friday. He went to the right, and when Muse dove the opposite way, the Terps had a 2-1 lead.
“I had a penalty in preseason against VCU and I went to the left,” Gasper said. “For whatever reason today, I was feeling the right side.”
After Gasper nailed his shot, St. Clair guessed correctly on Rece Buckmaster’s attempt and parried it away. The Terps let out a roar from midfield, knowing three more makes would guarantee a win.
“Having Dayne in goal is such a confident booster. You know he’s bound to save a few,” Gasper said. “[He] gives you the extra edge, that competitive advantage going into penalty kicks. So we were feeling great, feeling motivated.”
While Gasper avenged a poor performance against Albany, St. Clair couldn’t replicate his own stellar performance. He saved three of eight spot kicks against the Great Danes, but Buckmaster’s effort was the only one St. Clair prevented from hitting the back of the net Friday.
Meanwhile, Muse saved shots from midfielder Mike Heitzmann and forward Vinicius Lansade, and the Hoosiers earned an appearance in the conference title game.
Maryland hasn’t won a penalty shootout since 2015, and Cirovski hopes that if the Terps enter one in the NCAA tournament for the third time in four years, the luck will finally shift in their favor.
“We got to figure out a way to win some shootouts,” Cirovski said. “The last couple haven’t been good for us. We were confident going into the shootout, but those things are really unpredictable.”
