Hofstra edges VCU, ODU to win first CAA title

The shots fired relentlessly for some 90 minutes.

After Jason Gates connected from long-range, Virginia Commonwealth scrambled desperately to even things up. There was the bullet in the ninth minute that Dominic Oduro sent from the right side of the 18-yard box that ricocheted off a Hofstra defender, then Ricardo Opoku’s free kick that sailed wide of the left goal post and the back-to-back-to-back free kick opportunities to start the second half.

“We’re just doing everything at that point,” said Rams head coach Tim O’Sullivan. “My feeling is if we lose 1-0 or we lose 3-0 we have to try and do everything we can to get that equalizing goal.”

They never did. Gates’ turn and shoot from about 20 yards out in the 16th minute was the kill shot. The Pride held on for the next 84 minutes to beat the Rams 1-0 at Sports Backers Stadium Friday, then beat Old Dominion by the same score Sunday earning their first trip to the NCAA tournament since 1968 and effectively ending VCU’s two-year streak of Colonial Athletic Association championships.

Gates’ last goal, an own goal, came off a mishap during a road game against Drexel. The goal Friday night, Gates’ fifth of the year, was just as sudden. After senior Michael Hermann sent a pass to the top of the outer box, Gates kind of roundhouse kicked a shot that squeezed underneath the crossbar and just out of the reach of VCU goalkeeper Saul Montero, who had wandered out of the goal.

“He’ll probably be dreaming about it for the next 10 years,” Hofstra head coach Richard Nuttall said of his junior forward. “I don’t think he’ll ever score one like it again in his life. It was a great goal and it was worthy of a game winner.”

The Pride took the Rams to overtime earlier this season before losing 1-0. Gates was almost invisible, not taking a shot all game.

But this time around O’Sullivan said, “The kid scored a great goal. Give him credit.

“It was just one of those games that I thought our effort and things like that were good but they deserve the credit. They finished a great play. We didn’t finish some of our scoring chances and we didn’t have enough of them to draw even and possibly win.”

The Rams, who took 15 shots the entire game, couldn’t convert on any of their scoring opportunities, which sucked because in the game’s final few minutes, they didn’t get many more.

“It’s a crazy game in a sense that you don’t know,” O’Sullivan said. “You may only have one chance in a game.”

Even with the loss, O’Sullivan said the team should still make the NCAA tournament set to start Nov. 19 on campuses across the country. But the 10th-year head coach said he’d skip the CAA championship game, missing out on Hofstra celebrating on his own home field.

Instead, he said he’d “go back and prepare for the next one.”

“I’ll just wait for the selection show on Monday,” he said.

That’s Monday at 4:30 p.m. on ESPNEWS.