Thomas Campbell Blog #3: Gaining Momentum

Thomas Campbell is a senior forward on the UNC Greensboro men's soccer team. This year will be different for the three-year starter, however. Campbell, UNCG's leading scorer last season, will be sitting out his redshirt season while recovering from a knee injury he suffered last spring. Each Friday, Campbell will blog about the Spartans' soccer season, his teammates, his classes and his journey back to the soccer pitch in the rehab process. Today is the third installment.

Hello all.

I was looking forward to this week's blog because we finally got our first win. Like I said in last week's blog, we had a very important weekend at Elon's tournament. We played East Tennessee State University on Friday. This is ETSU's first year as a Division I program so it was very important for us to get a good result.

They played us real tough but we pulled out a 3-1 win. There were some good points and some bad points but it was an important win. When you start a season with three one-goal losses like we did, a win is a win and you just want to get some momentum going.

On Sunday, we played UNC Asheville. We played from behind for most of the game but tied it up with about five minutes to go on a great goal by Michael Bonilla. We went into overtime and scored about three minutes in, but the goal was called off for offside. We ended up in a 1-1 tie - a frustrating tie after a good win against ETSU. So we ended the weekend with a 1-3-1 record overall.

Monday's rehab was not fun. Like I said in my previous blog, Mondays and Thursdays are the hardest days of the week. I stepped up to 170 lbs for 2 sets of 5. I also did 45 minutes on the elliptical and I thought I was going to die. Being out of shape is the worst feeling in the world. It just makes me realize how much more work I have to do to get back into playing shape. I get to start running soon so that will be a huge step towards getting back.

We played Campbell on Wednesday back at home. It was a great out of conference game and a great game for us to win. We started off the game awesome. The first half was the best half we have played all season. We went into halftime with a 2-0 lead. We came out solid in the second half, but sat back a little too much and ended up giving up a goal midway through the second half on a PK. With about 15 minutes to go, a Campbell player missed a bicycle kick by about 1 foot. If it went in it would have tied the game 2-2 and – I have to give him credit on this – it would have been the best goal I have scene in my college career. With less than a minute to go we cleared one off the line and held on for a 2-1 win. 

So overall it has been a good week for the team and for me. After the slow start, we're unbeaten in our last three. We have another big game this weekend against UNC Wilmington, so hopefully we could pull out another great out of conference win and build on the Campbell win. UNCW has had our number a little – going back to giving us our first loss when we were No. 1 in the nation the year before I came here (2004) and then beat us again in my first match as a Spartan in overtime to open the following season. We beat them down at their place last year, so I am sure they will be ready for us, too.

If you're a soccer fan it has also been a good soccer week around the world. It was the opening week for the Champions League. My favorite team Barcelona played on Tuesday along with Manchester United. There were some other games but I did not watch them.

Thursday was my roommate Matt's 21st birthday so I need to give him a shout out and say Happy Birthday.

Till next time. Ciao.

Thomas Campbell, #7

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