chopper@cougarmedianetwork.com

The College of Charleston’s men’s soccer team ended its exhibition season with a tetchy 0-0 draw with Mercer on Saturday night that saw 24 fouls and seven cards.

One of those cards was a 64th-minute red card for Charleston defender Shawn Ferguson, but due to a pregame agreement between the two coaching staffs, the Cougars were allowed to continue the game with a full complement of 11 players.

Mercer opened the game by throwing players forward, and kept the Cougars on the back foot, almost continuously, for the first 20 minutes of the game. Even though Charleston came back into the game after the Bears’ opening barrage, the halftime stats sheet bore out the ugly truth. Mercer held a 4-1 advantage in shots and a 6-0 edge in corner kicks, including one that had to be blocked off the line by a Charleston defender in the 20th minute.

The Cougars’ best movement in the first half came down the left flank amid the growing understanding between Sean de Silva and freshman Tanner Clay. De Silva, a junior winger who has already earned an international call-up for Trinidad and Tobago, is the Cougars’ only returning first-team All-Southern Conference selection. Clay is a 6-foot, 3-inch behemoth of a defender/forward who chose the Cougars – and soccer – over a potential spot on a Division I football roster after setting a school record for receiving yards for Arizona’s 5A state champions, Chandler Hamilton.

Whatever head coach Ralph Lundy said at halftime worked, however, and the Cougars charged out of the gate in the second half. For the final 45 minutes, Charleston outshot Mercer, 12-5, put six shots on net compared to one for the Bears, and reversed the corner kick disparity for a 8-0 advantage.

The Cougars put the ball in the back of the net eight minutes into the second half, only to have the goal called back. With a mass of players in the box, a looping shot caught Mercer keeper Greg Ranjitsingh off-balance, and all he could do was watch the ball graze off his outstretched fingers and drop into the goal. But the play was immediately called back for offsides. Ranjitsingh recovered from his forgiven blunder to pull off a strong save two minutes later on a rocket by Ralphie Lundy, keeping the game scoreless. Lundy led the Cougars with four shots, three on goal.

“It was a tough match, and they were very tough. They started the game pressuring us, and we played pretty bad for about 20 minutes,” said the Cougars head coach, slamming his fist into his hand to accentuate the physical nature of the game. “Then we got things under control, but we didn’t score.

“I really liked the second half,” Lundy continued. “We shared the ball, we had chances, but we didn’t score. You’ve got to score. In the second half, we put the ball on the goal, their keeper made saves. They countered some, but most of the time it was us.

“We still have to work out how we get into that net. That’s the big deal: how you get in the goal.”

The Cougars kick off the regular season at 6 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 26, when they host the South Carolina Gamecocks in Fox Soccer Channel’s national NCAA game of the week. FSC will be broadcasting from Patriots Point as the Cougars aim to break the school’s all-time attendance record for soccer, 2,024 set last season when Charleston defeated East Tennessee State, 3-2, in an NCAA Tournament game.