By Tony Miller
Sports Information Director

WINONA LAKE, Ind. — It almost always ends in a loss.

Three days after living out the euphoria of a road win in the playoffs, the Goshen College men's soccer team saw its best season in a decade pass into the hands of the Grim Reaper Of Postseason Defeat in a 2-1 loss to Grace College on Saturday evening in the Crossroads League tournament semifinal on the Grace campus.

Marcelo Talamas delivered the final blow, a bicycle-kick follow-up from the left side of the goal area on the rebound of Damon Binkley's shot attempt with 90 seconds remaining to finish the comeback after Goshen led for nearly half an hour.

Johan Escalante backstopped a Maple Leaf defense that took Goshen (12-6-2) as far as it could go, with the junior goalkeeper making 10 saves as Grace (11-4-4) got off 20 shots and seven corner kicks.

The Maple Leafs were credited with only three attempts, all of which came before halftime. Despite the disparity, the visiting team got on the board first in the 34th minute when Ethan Francois-Ravalier suffered a foul in the penalty area. Grace goalkeeper Kurt Hamlin guessed correctly on the ensuing penalty kick, but Stuart Aeschliman beat him anyway for his team-high 12th goal of the season.

Aeschliman finishes his freshman season with 12 goals and 30 points, marking the most by any player since Tony Janzen had 14 and 33 respectively as a senior in 2007 and the most by a freshman since Goshen entered the NAIA in 1970. Paul Sawatsky put up 11 goals and 28 points in 1977. The last freshman to score in double figures was Cody Felton with 10 goals (22 points) in 2005:

The Lancers responded with five shots in the last four minutes of the period: Togo Narusawa had his try cleared off the line by Sven Badstieber before three more tries sailed high or wide and Escalante saved Binkley's attempt at the horn.

Coming out of the break, Goshen's defense fell afoul of the officiating crew, with six fouls in the opening quarter-hour resulting in six Grace free kicks, three Escalante saves and three more corners to triple the Lancers' first-half total. The final foul was the most harmful, though, as a 62nd-minute handball gave Colin Cape the chance to knock in a penalty of his own and level the score.

From there, the match seemed destined for bonus soccer, the second straight match to go down to the wire between the conference's two GCs (Grace won 1-0 at Goshen seven days before) and the second semifinal of the day to require more than 90 minutes (Spring Arbor topped Huntington in a shootout after a double-overtime draw earlier Saturday afternoon).

Escalante would rack up four more saves, several of the diving and full-extension varieties, over the next 20 minutes as the match wore on. Goshen got its lone corner of the match in the 78th minute but couldn't get a shot away, while Grace suffered a pair of yellow cards as frustration over the home side's inability to convert mounted.

The Lancer breakthrough came on the heels of Goshen's 17th foul with two minutes remaining, after a restart that saw the ensuing free kick played up the right wing and crossed into the box, as a Goshen defense that pitched eight shutouts this season saw its campaign in effectively walk-off fashion for the second straight year. Aeschliman would get one more try, but the attempt never made it to Hamlin in the waning seconds.

Grace finished the game with advantages of 24-3 in shots, 7-1 in corner kicks and 18-8 in free kicks. Hamlin got the win without making a save while Binkley and Cape led all players with five shots. Cody Boerema put a game-high four attempts on target.

The Maple Leafs close their season with 37 goals scored and 31 assists, their most since the 2009 team finished the year with 39 in each category. 2009 was also the last time that Goshen won as many as a dozen games, although this year's unit finished with a higher winning percentage than that team by virtue of having more ties and fewer losses.

Goshen's defense finished the season with eight clean sheets, the most in a regular season since the conference expanded to eight schools and instituted a tournament in 1994. The 2005 and 2007 teams each racked up nine shutouts, but each of those clubs had at least one in the postseason.

Ollie Smith finished the year with eight assists, the most by any Goshen player since Nick Good had 11 in 2009; the last Maple Leaf to add that many assists in his first or second year of eligibility was Sam Richardson in 1998.

The loss Saturday more than likely ended Goshen's season; while either six or seven teams will make the national tournament as at-large selections, that number will be insufficient to get out of the top 25 in the NAIA coaches' poll, and GC was not one of the 39 teams to receive votes in the most recent iteration.

Crossroads League all-conference awards are slated to be announced following the conclusion of the conference tournament next weekend, with Academic All-District, All-American and NAIA Scholar-Athlete honors to follow in due course.

Goshen will begin its 60th-anniversary season of men's soccer next August, with the schedule set to be announced in May. Stay tuned to GoLeafs.net and follow the Maple Leafs on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the latest information as the offseason progresses.

Comments from Goshen coach Arron Patrick to come when available.