The 1987 USF soccer team won the West Coast Athletic Conference title with a 3-1-1 league record, but the Dons were eliminated in the first round of the NCAA tournament by UNLV. A UNLV player, who was later declared ineligible, scored the only goal of the game.
The Dons established themselves that year as one of the finest defenses in the country – it became common knowledge that the only way to beat USF was to defend your own goal and try to score once for a 1-0 win. The Dons ended the season with a 14-5-3 mark, with all five losses coming by the narrowest of margins – one goal.
Highlights included a nine game winning-streak to start the season and wins over Fresno State (1-0), Washington (4-1) and California (2-0). During the nine game winning-streak, the Dons outscored their opponents 23-5 with six shutouts. The Dons featured 1988 Olympian John Doyle and balanced scoring led by Bjorn Schonbeck (23 points), Ola Henmo (19 points), Marco Luchetta (16 points), Kit Halvorsen (15 points) and Steve Torkelsen (14 points).
Born in Grav in 1965, Ola Henmo was a native of Norway and studied at USF from 1986 to 1988. He transferred to the University of Oslo where he completed his Bachelors in Philosophy in 1990. He played professionally in Norway for the Frigg, Fossum, and Stabaek Clubs. He became a journalist and worked for Afterposten, and covered the 2011 Norway attacks, and published books about on the topics of: the politician Torstein Lerhol, Kim Friele, the activist, and the Norwegian Cancer Society.Â
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