By Steve Marcus
Staff Writer
The men’s soccer team (4-11, 2-3) look forward to a potentially historic weekend after beating Dayton (8-4-1, 2-2-1) on Friday and suffering 2-1 loss against nationally ranked Xavier (10-0-4, 3-0-2) Sunday.
The men have a long weekend of travel as they head to Amherst, Mass. this weekend to take on UMass (5-7-2, 2-3) before finishing off the weekend at Rhode Island (2-9-3, 1-3-1). The Bonnies currently sit in a tie for seventh place with four teams. Each team has six points, and the top eight teams make the postseason tournament.
UMass enters the game after losing at Charlotte 4-0 last Friday and beating George Washington 3-0 on Sunday. The Minutemen have been tough at home this year going 4-2-1 at Rudd Field. Nine Minutemen players found the back of the net with sophomore Josh Schwartz leading the charge with 12 points on five goals and two assists. UMass was picked to finish 13th in the preseason poll and currently is tied with SBU for 7th place.
URI enters this weekend’s game as losers of three straight and winless in six of their last seven games. Last weekend the Rams lost at George Washington 2-0 on Friday night, and lost at Charlotte 6-1 on Sunday. Rhode Island was picked to finish 12th in the preseason poll and currently sits in 15th place with a total of four points. The Rams are led by sophomore Mike Casey who has a team high 13 points on the season with five goals and three assists.
Junior defender Brad Beaumont said executing will be a main focus this week in practice.
“Coach Mahler has done a good job preparing to get us to where we ought to be,” Beaumont said. “We just need to execute from every part of the field now.
Junior midfielder James Reed said the team wished they didn’t have to wait a whole week to play.
“Were pumped up to play, we wish we could play UMass today,” Reed said. “Focusing on getting guys healthy heading into this long road trip, that’s going to be tough on our bodies.
Junior defender Kolby Banker said this weekend is huge with postseason implications.
“We head into the weekend where we know we need 6 points,” Banker said. “We are definitely encouraged by the play from our team this weekend.”
On Friday, Emmett O’Connor scored two goals and assisted on the other as the Bonnies scored early and often to beat Dayton, 3-0. The win came with a consequence, however. Starting in net for the first time in over a month, sophomore Bobby Diaz came out of net to stop a breakaway just 17 seconds into the game and left the game after hitting the ground hard during the play. Walk-on senior Abel Bautista replaced Diaz in net and played the rest of the game.
Coach Mel Mahler said he’s pleased with the result.
“Great win, I’m happy for the guys,” Mahler said. “We’ve always been able to create scoring chances, but we’ve struggled finishing. Today, we finished and that was the difference.”
On Sunday, nationally ranked and undefeated Xavier made their way to McGraw-Jennings field. The Bonnies scored first in the 24th minute as junior James Reed capitalized on a fumble from the Xavier goalie during junior Brad Vanino’s first shot attempt.
The early lead would not last long as a Musketeer breakaway resulted in senior goalie Abel Bautista having to come out of net and being whistled for a foul resulting in a Musketeer penalty kick. XU leading goal scorer Luke Spencer lined up the shot and blasted it past Bautista. The score remained tied at one at half. In the 70th minute, a very controversial call resulted in a hand ball for Xavier, giving them a free kick which turned into the game winner. The Bonnies were not able to generate a serious scoring threat for the next 20 minutes and the game ended 2-1.
Redshirt senior midfielder Reid Gan touched on last weekend’s results.
“We really can’t be discouraged at all by our last loss,” Gan said. “We had a pretty even game against a great team. I think it’s time we stop thinking of ourselves as underdogs and start to play and act like the effective team that we feel we can be.”
