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Soccer Team Finds Senior Night success and National respect
11/2/2010
 October 25th gave the 2010 UST seniors one final chance to play in front of the home crowd in Houston at Strake Jesuit. A group of seven seniors and the rest of the Celts faced Texas College out of the Red River Conference and looked to go for six straight matches without a loss. The Celts were determined to give their seniors the going away gift that they deserved. It didn’t take long, actually only 2 minutes, for the Celts to open up the scoring. Fittingly, seniors Otto "Kevin" Valdez and Jad El-Masri hooked up for a great goal. El Masri broke down the right side of the Texas College and played a ball back across the face of goal to a streaking Valdez, who put the ball past the opposing goalkeeper. It was Valdez's first goal of the season and a storybook beginning to his senior night.
The Celts continued to control the match and gave the UST crowd an entertaining match to watch. The Celts would strike again in the first half when senior Danny Rivera took a brilliant through pass from Irving Escobedo and slotted the ball through the legs of the goalkeeper. There were several other chances in the half but it would be 2-0 at the break. In the second half UST came out a little relaxed and had to regain the control they had enjoyed in the first half. Senior UST Goal Keeper and captain Lukas “Miko” Simon came up with a some brilliant saves but was eventually beat in the 80th minute to bring the score to 2-1. Though hitting the post twice and having several other near misses, the game would end 2-1 giving UST their 6 consecutive match without a loss.
Honoring Team Seniors
“The seven seniors on the team have paved the way for future Celts while achieving a record of 30 wins, 28 losses, and 5 ties in 4 years and back-to-back NAIA-AII conference tournament appearances,” Coach Aaron Champenoy said. “Five of these student athletes are in their fourth season with the Celts and members of the original 2007 team. They have been great student athletes and have led this team on and off the field. Their contributions to our program will be greatly missed.”
Otto “Kevin” Valdez - #3 Midfielder/Defender –is a three-year letter winner from El Campo, TX. Valdez is a finance major with a minor in business administration with a 3.185 GPA, and he was twice named to the Deans List. He is the vice president of the Cameron Business Society and a Presidential Ambassador. Valdez has played in 33 matches over 3 years tallying 3 goals and 1 assist for 7 points on his career.
Shane Rojas - #15 Midfielder/Defender –is a three-year letter winner from Port of Spain, Trinidad. Rojas is a double major in finance & psychology with a 2.981 GPA. He was recently named to the Dean’s List and is a member of the Cameron Business Society at UST. Rojas has played in 42 matches with 4 goals and 4 assists for 12 points.
Frederick DeSantiago-#21 Midfielder is a four-year letter winner from Corpus Christi. DeSantiago is Business Administration major with 3.347 GPA and 3 times named to the Dean’s List. He played in 29 games with 1 assist. He also won the NAIA Champions of Character award and plans to obtain a master’s degree in Finance from Texas A&M Corpus Christi.
Daniel Rivera - #9 Forward/Midfielder –is a 4 year letter winner from Houston, TX. Daniel is a Finance major with a 3.0 GPA and a member of the Cameron Business Society at UST. Rivera has appeared in 54 matches accumulating 6 goals & 4 assists for 16 points.
Efrain Orozco - #7 Midfielder is a four year letter winner from Houston, TX. Efrain is a Business Administration major and Philosophy minor with a 2.6 GPA. Efrain has played in more matches than any other Celt appearing in 61 matches racking up 11 goals & 3 assists for 25 points. Orozco was team co-captain in 2007 and 2008.
Jad El-Masri Team Co-Captain, #8 Forward –is a four-year letter winner from Beirut, Lebanon. El-Masri is a double major in marketing and finance with minor in philosophy holding a 3.122 GPA and three times named to the Dean’s List. He has also been named to the collegiate Who’s Who list and received the NAIA award for Champions of Character. He is second on the all-time scoring list with 16 goals, 13 assists & 155 shots giving him 45 points in 60 matches on his career and was named to the 2009 2nd team all-AII conference.
Lukas “Miko” Simon, Team Co-Captain, #1 Goalkeeper –is a four-year letter winner from Munich, Germany. Simon is a bioiInformatics major holding a 3.75 GPA and has been named to the Dean’s List every semester while at UST. He is also an “outstanding member of the TriBeta Club. Simon plans on continuing his education at graduate school next year. On the field, Simon has played in 58 matches with 286 saves in his career while keeping a 1.3 goals against average. He also has 3 goals & 1 assist for 7 points earning him 2008 & 2009 1st team all-AII conference.
The Celts were back in action and looking to gain some national respect on Halloween to face NCAA DII powerhouse Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls. Midwestern entered the match undefeated this season ranked No. 2 in the recent national poll. UST stepped on the field with a little chip on their shoulder and played to prove how far they've come this season. The first half saw both teams getting into scoring positions but with out a score. Again Miko Simon was solid in the net for the Celts coming up with big saves when tested. The Celts went into the half 0-0 playing with some earned confidence. The Celts continued to defend as a team in the second half and played for each other. Both teams saw only a few chances in the second half. At the end of regulation, the score was still 0-0. The match entered overtime with the Celts coming out strong and narrowly missing a game winning chance. With only 3 minutes left in the first overtime MSU was awarded a penalty kick when a Mustang was taken down in the box. Unfortunately they converted on the PK to win the match on Golden Goal. The match ended 1-0 in favor of the Mustangs.
"This was a great test for our program and proved to our players and anyone else that we have a quality team that can compete at the highest levels. I am very proud of the team and how hard they played. It was an unfortunate mental mistake that gave them the PK. I know we will learn from the mistake and only make us a better team in the next tough match we have. MSU is an extremely good program filled with tradition and our guys went out and battled for 97 minutes giving them quite a scare."
Shown above: Jad El-Masri
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