By MARK MOSCHETTI
Seattle Pacific Sports Information
 
SEATTLE – After 45 years, memories of just about anything might understandably get a little fuzzy.
 
But when looking back at the 1978 NCAA Division II men's soccer national championship game,  some recollections are still crystal clear for Bruce Raney and Cliff McCrath.
 
 

Raney, who was just a freshman, scored midway through the third overtime period – the 127th minute of the game – giving the McCrath-coached Falcons a stunning 1-0 victory against highly-regarded Alabama A&M on a hot, humid 2nd of December in Miami – the first of what would grow into a collection of five crowns in a span of 16 seasons (1978-93).
 
"We were a massive underdog," said Raney, now 63 and working locally in sales with a large national logistics and transportation services provider. "Alabama A&M beat SPU (in the finals) the year before, and they were a formidable team with players from all over the world – excellent players from the continent of Africa and various countries. They were just massive in terms of their physicality.
 
"We were just a bunch of guys who wanted to fight and scrap," he added. "We survived and found a way to get a goal in that overtime period."
 
Raney and the 1978 team will be part of Seattle Pacific's Legacy Night celebration on Saturday, Sept. 16 when the Falcons play host to Colorado School of Mines in a non-conference game at Interbay Stadium. Game time is at 5:00 p.m. Also in the spotlight that day will be the 40^th anniversary of the 1983 championship, the 30^th anniversary of the 1993 team, and the 55^th anniversary of the program.

130 MINUTES ONE DAY, 127 THE NEXT
The third OT on that afternoon was actually the sixth extra 15-minute period the Falcons had played in a span of 24 hours. They had gone three overtimes in the previous day's semifinal against Southern Connecticut, finally pulling out a 1-0 win on a goal in the 130th minute by Kevin Bloudoff.
 
 

That gave them just overnight to rest up and get ready for Alabama A&M – a team which already had outscored its three NCAA Tournament opponents by a combined 15-0 margin (6-0 against Florida International, 4-0 vs. Loyola of Maryland, and 5-0 against Eastern Illinois).
 
"That's a game we should have lost by significant (amount of) goals," McCrath said. "They were the slickest, quickest, most dominating team in the country at the time. We were just a bunch of scrappy kids that somehow stayed together."
 
The Falcons "stayed together" through a 17-5-4 regular season and the Far West Regionals to earn the trip to Miami.
 
But once they got there, getting into the national championship game became much more than just playing a 90-minute semifinal against Southern Connecticut State. That game went all the way to the 130th minute – two-thirds of the way through the third overtime – before Bloudoff found the back of the net for a 1-0 victory.
 
"It was definitely a very competitive game – two very good teams," Raney said. "It was hot and humid – we're Washington guys in December coming from 30 or 40 degrees  and coming to 75 degrees and humid and playing overtime games."
 
Unlike now, when the semifinals are typically on a Thursday and the final on a Saturday, the semis and finals in 1978 were back-to-back – Friday and Saturday.
 
 

"We had a very balanced roster, had a lot of good players and had subs available," Raney said of getting back onto the field the next afternoon. "We rotated the players as much as possible, especially in the front and midfield. The defenders, the five or six main defenders, were just phenomenal.
 
So was the last line of defense: goalkeeper Sergio Soriano, who delivered the back-to-back shutouts – 257 minutes' worth – in the Final Four.
 
"The man was just invincible – nothing was going to get past him and the defense and the midfield," Raney said. "Everybody just ran their legs off, but we found a way to do it."

CUTTING POWER TO A POWERHOUSE
Raney, who scored 16 goals that fall on the way a final career total of 68 (a school record that still stands), got the biggest one of his life in the 127th minute against A&M. A throw-in by Eric Benz went to Jim McKay, and his subsequent header went into the goalmouth area. Raney drilled his ensuing shot into the net.
 
 

"The significance of the victory was not that we beat them," McCrath said, "but that the final score was one-nothing – they were averaging five goals a game against the people they beat.
 
"(For us), it was the resiliency of a pack of brothers that decided we would stay stitched at the wrist and the beard and the hips and play like crazy," added McCrath who, upon returning to Seattle, fulfilled his promise of shaving off his mustache and crawling on hands and knees from campus to the Space Needle. "And that's how it happened."
 
For Bruce Raney and Cliff McCrath, some memories apparently never get fuzzy.
 
Especially when they revolve around one unforgettable goal.