Oct. 27, 2008
IRVING, Texas — After netting two game-tying goals in Kentucky’s two Conference USA wins last week, sophomore forward C.J. Tappel has been tabbed the C-USA Offensive Player of the Week, the league office announced on Monday.
Tappel, a sophomore from Lexington, Ky., had a career week while leading the Wildcats to a 2-0 week, improving UK’s win streak to a season-best four games. Tappel, who attended Lexington Catholic, netted game-tying goals in UK’s two wins, both dramatic comeback wins.
In his first goal of the year against UCF, UK trailed in the 71st minute when Tappel struck for the goal, evening up the game at 1-1, setting up a Wildcat game-winner eight minutes later. In UK’s two overtime, golden-goal win over FIU, UK faced a 2-1 deficit in the 64th minute when Tappel struck again, hooking up with Masumi Turnbull on the equalizer, sending the game to overtime and an eventual Turnbull golden-goal win in the 103rd minute.
In just 81 minutes in the two games, Tappel tallied four points. Tappel – a 2007 C-USA All-Freshmen team member – has netted two goals and added two assists during the 2008 season.
On the year, UK has dominated the conference weekly honors, with Tappel’s accolade marking the fifth time a UK player has been awarded a weekly honor during the 2008 season. Michael Strong, UK’s leading scorer, won the honor the first week of the season and Tim Crone earned the award on Oct. 13. UK goalkeeper Dan Williams has twice been awarded C-USA Defensive Player of the Week during the 2008 season. Only South Carolina has earned five conference weekly accolades during the 2008 season, with four coming as Defensive Player of the Week honors for Gamecock goalkeeper Jimmy Maurer.
Kentucky (9-4-2, 5-1 C-USA) returns to action on Wednesday, facing No. 18 Indiana in its last non-conference game of the year. Game time is slated for 7:30 p.m. in Bloomington, Ind.