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Kessinger: Busters soccer deserves more fan support

Published 9/16/2009 in None

Every once in a while I'll be somewhere -- a football game, basketball game, out in the middle of nowhere -- and something unbelievably incredible will happen.

Something you'll get to witness maybe once in a great, great while. Maybe ever.

Late Sunday afternoon I was at Memorial Stadium for one of those moments. The problem I had with it was the fact that I was witnessing it with no more than 100 spectators. And with the way it went down it is a shame more fans weren't in the stands.

With less than 10 seconds to go in overtime of the Garden City Community College men's soccer game against Laramie (Wyo.) County, the Broncbusters' Ulises Caba and Whitney Browne raced down the field with possession of the ball passing it back and forth. Midfield, 40-yard line, 20-yard line...the clock ticked below five seconds. Then Laramie goalkeeper Brandon Carrick charged to stop the possession and send the game into a second overtime. As Carrick closed in on Browne and dove for the stop, the freshman forward started to lose his balance but got off a hard, ground drive past Carrick that rolled straight into the net. Browne turned around looking at the clock that read 1.7 seconds and he raised his hands to the sky and yelled in celebration as his teammates mobbed him at midfield. The Busters won 3-2, clinching a 2-0 mark in their home tournament for the second straight year.

"I knew (Carrick) was coming out and that's why I was afraid I may have pushed the ball too hard," Browne said after the game. "Luckily it didn't go a touch outside the goal. It was a good game."

In reality, as far as good games go, GCCC coach Stephen Gorton and his team felt more as though it certainly wasn't their best effort Sunday. But for a crowd pleaser it met the requirements.

"I was checking (the clock) because it came out with like four seconds," Gorton said when Caba and Browne headed downfield with the ball that bounced into the open field from a free kick by Laramie County. "I was checking and I was like 'OK, this is going to happen,' then it happened. I looked up to make sure the clock wasn't at zero or something and it was 1.7 and I was like -- I just started sprinting around. I don't even know where I was running to."

This has been the way it's been for the GCCC men's soccer program in the last two years. Celebrating win after win, and of late been doing it with a huge target on their back. The Busters are the No. 4-ranked team in the NJCAA. They are, by team standards as far as wins go, the most successful team in southwest Kansas in any sport. Yet, the Busters do it in front of sparse crowds, game after game.

Recognition still comes hard for a game that has built momentum in a football, basketball, baseball crazed country. But this program Gorton has helped build (two as an assistant, now in his third year as head coach) deserves more attention from the community and surrounding area.

And more than anything it would be nice to see that support in the stands.

Assistant Sports Editor Mike Kessinger can be contacted at mkessinger@gctelegram.com

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