Midfielder Smolen had scored the winning goal against Columbia, while

Bengtzen and Soldo had been counted on to produce around the goal.

By mid-October, the Crimson was 2-7-1 and found itself without steady offensive production and without its vocal, emotional field general.

"The players didn't realize by the results how much they had accomplished from day one in preseason to where they were in the standings," Kerr said. "The coaching staff knew we were doing the right things in practice and knew we were trying to get across the right ideas. They were picking them up, maybe not as quickly as we would have liked, but we knew that they were succeeding in what we were trying to accomplish."

With a loss of confidence came a loss of offensive production that hurt the Crimson throughout the season. Over a six game winless streak in

October, the Crimson was outscored 14-4.

"That's when I decided I had to move Armando [Petruccelli, the

Crimson's leading scorer] from midfield to attack, and I think since we have done that the offensive production has been a lot better because