Aug. 25, 2002

The Florida Atlantic men's soccer team won in superb fashion Saturday evening with a 2-1 come from behind win over fellow Boca Raton residence, Lynn University. Bjeorn Totland scored two second half goals, including the game winner, to lead the Owls to victory in a game with many emotions.

The Owls started first half flat and struggled to put the pressure on their opponents. Whenever FAU would handled the ball, they would be smothered and forced to make ugly passes. The Knights played aggressive soccer that put the Owls on their heals and forced them to question their own system. That pressure paid off when Christopher Karagianis sent a cross into a crowded six-yard box that ended with a one-timer kicked by Ross Lumsden past FAU goalie Anders Granstad.

"In the first half, every player on the field was a little bit timid and gave too much respect to the opposing team and they weren't quite sure what to do," said head coach Kos Donev.

The second half brought new vigor to Florida Atlantic. The defense played much more forceful, pushing their line to midfield constantly and drawing the offside more and more. The offense seemed poised to score when Totland lobbed a ball over the Lynn defense to Fredrick Stenrud but the ball was hit a bit hard and goalie Kevin Street scooped it up for the save.

"The second half I told them we needed to put more pressure on the players to make them play instead of allowing them to play so easy and they did that," said Donev. "We forced them to make mistakes, they didn't control the game like they did in the first half and the result was we were able to come back and win. They showed that with hard work, the result came out."

After some offensive aggressiveness, Totland was the receiver of a lobbed ball from Oerjan Stroeksnes at the 20-yard line. The junior from Norway took the ball in, controlled it and put a shot past the keeper to tie the game at 1-1. With eight minutes to play, Totland struck again. Bjorn Masson switched sides of the field with a pass that freshman Scott Rauscher headed to the feet of Totland, who set his sights and wound up for a low shot that skidded under the right arm of Street for the game-winning goal.

There were some high emotions in the game that led to five yellow cards for FAU, mostly being called for hard tackles, and two for Lynn. Passion was in the eyes of every player as the tension grew towards the end of the game with the score tied and FAU gaining momentum.

Florida Atlantic University opens its regular season on the road in Wisconsin, August 30th. The Owls first home game will be versus Florida International at FAU field, September 19th at 7:00 pm