By Brandon Boyer, Staff Writer

Published in print Nov. 5, 2014

On a frigid early November night, UNCG saw eight of their senior players kick-off for their final regular season home game in the Spartan’s homecoming match against Virginia Military Institute.

With over one thousand in attendance, braving the first cold snap of the school year, the Spartans defeated the visiting Keydets by a final score of 3-1. The win over their visitors gives the Spartans a record of five wins, four losses, and a draw in Southern Conference play, finishing in a tie for third with Furman.

Before kick-off, Davis Griffin, Aaron Reifschneider, Dustin Gamradt, Nathan Bunch, Justin Jones, Jake Fields, Austin Miller and Stephen Moffitt were all honored on the field with their families escorting them on to the field to receive a bouquet of flowers and an honorary framed photograph of each player in action.

The first half was slow and shaky from both sides, as the Keydets sat back and defended heavily, a consequence of their dreadful season where they  have now lost 16 out of 18 matchups following their loss to UNCG.

Jacques Francois was the catalyst up front on multiple occasions, but ultimately failed to hit the target, despite a multitude of opportunities to do so. The electric freshman forward played in from the left on most attacks, weaving in and out of red shirts, dazzling defenders and playing as if the ball was tied to his right boot with a string. It genuinely was amazing to see the Haitian-born forward somehow escape five defenders that had closed in on him at the top of the box prior to halftime, somehow keeping the ball and playing it out wide for his teammates.

The game had life injected into it in the 18 minute, as midfielder and Homecoming honoree, Aaron Reifschneider launched a long through ball in over the top of the Keydets, landing in front of sophomore forward, Nicholas Downs, who had timed his run to perfect. In on goal alone, Downs coolly slotted the ball into the bottom left hand corner past VMI keeper Alex Guerra. The calm finish tallied for Downs’ first career regular season goal for the Spartans and energized those soldiering on brave supporters in the stands.

It was not all domination from the Blue and Gold however; a few miscues from Eric Gunnarsson and Justin Jones saw the Keydets get in on goal on a few occasions. One such opportunity saw senior keeper Davis Griffin having to come outside of the box to clean up a sloppy pass from his defense, one that nearly let two VMI forwards in on goal. Luck was on Griffin’s side again with three minutes to play in the half, as a miscued back pass saw Keydet forward,Blake McCauley spring in on a wide open goal, but McCauley could not sort his feet out and shot well wide, much to the relief of the Spartans.

Although Gunnarsson came close with a shot that slid just past the outside of the post 10 minutes later, the Spartans went into halftime with only a 1-0 advantage.

It took a double tally from Christopher Reingen and Eric Gunnarsson in the 74 minute respectively to put the Homecoming match to bed against the weak, but defensively organized Keydets.

The senior goalkeeping duo of Davis Griffin and Stephen Moffit could not keep the goose egg on the scoreboard and the clean sheet in the record books, however, as Travis Borkey beat an on-rushing Moffit in the 86th minute to offer the Keydets a parting consolation goal.

“Our seniors are a special group of kids,” said head coach Justin Maullin to UNCGSpartans.com after the game. “Every one of them hold a special place in our hearts and we will miss them dearly. I am glad we got them off with a win tonight and we get to come back here in a week to play against in the SoCon Tournament.”

With the Southern Conference Men’s soccer tournament coming to UNCG, this will not be the last home hurrah from the Spartans’ seniors this year.

The fourth-seeded Spartans will play host to the fifth-seed East Tennessee State Bulldogs in the quarterfinals of the SoCon Men’s soccer tournament on Saturday, November 8 slated for 7 p.m. at UNCG Soccer Stadium.