By Steve Marcus
Staff Writer
The men’s soccer team lost both games over the weekend and narrowly missed out on making the Atlantic 10 postseason. The men finished the year with a 5-14 record, going 3-6 in conference.
The weekend began with high hopes, as winning both games would guarantee the team a spot in the postseason, however a 1-0 loss Friday vs La Salle and a 2-0 setback vs Fordham on Sunday eliminated the Bonnies.
On Friday at Olean High School, La Salle (9-6-3, 3-4-1 A10) scored in the sixth minute. A deflected corner kick fell to the feet of Rob Friskey, who gathered and blasted it past senior goalie Abel Bautista to put the Explorers up 1-0. The Bonnies turned up the intensity in the second half, knowing their season was on the line. The Brown and White fired 15 shots but were unable to find the back of the net.
With their postseason hopes still alive on Sunday, Fordham (6-7-4, 2-4-3) crushed the men’s dreams of making the tournament, scoring twice in the second half to end the Bonnies’ season. In the 64th minute, Taylor Gulbins received a Nate Bekoe cross and Gulbins headed it past Bautista.
Thirteen minutes later, Julian Nagel broke free and went one-on-one with Bautsista. He chipped it past the senior, and put the Rams up 2-0. The men dominated every aspect of the game, outshooting Fordham 14-5 and having a 9-2 advantage in corner kicks. With the loss, the men were officially eliminated from postseason contention.
After beginning the year 0-6 and going 2-8 in the non conference portion of the slate, the Bonnies exceeded expectation in A-10 play.
Picked to finish 15th in the preseason poll, the men finished in a tie for 10th place with Fordham. Next season, the Bonnies return junior Brad Vanino who led the team with six goals. They also return leading assist man junior Emmett O’Connor who had six helpers on the season to go along with three goals. O’Connor was also named second team all-conference.
Vanino ends the season in 17th place on the Bonaventure all-time scoring list while teammate Emmett O’Connor sits in 12th place on the career points list and in 3rd place on the school’s all-time assist list.
In total, the Bonnies scored 22 goals on the season. Of those goals, 21 were scored by players who will don the Brown and White again next season. Also returning next season are goalies sophomore Bobby Diaz, who appeared in five games this season, and freshman Ben Cowman, who appeared in three. Returning from injury are juniors Nicholas Perillo, Eric Smolarek, Robert D’Cruz and sophomore Mike Lawhead who will all be looked upon to contribute heavily for the 2013 team.
However, the Bonnies lose senior goalie Abel Bautista who joined the team as a walk on this fall. Bautista appeared in 13 games, starting. In those 13 games, the men were 5-8. Bautista had 57 saves on the season equivalent to a 74 save percentage while allowing 1.58 goals per game and pitching two shutouts.
Junior defender Kolby Banker reflected on the season and said excitement is building already for next year.
“The season didn’t go as planned since the first day of preseason when we found out some players would be out for the season with injuries,” Banker said. “It was a season plagued with injury and costly cards, which affected the results of games. We return mostly everyone next year and with some money coming back into the program through graduation hopefully landing a few solid recruits; will let us fulfill our goals next year to make the A-10 tournament.”
Senior forward Reid Gan, who on Sunday played in his final game in a Bonaventure jersey, said the season was full of bad luck.
The Bonnies put themselves in position to have a better record, but, unfortunately, couldn’t put the team ahead in the right situations to better their record, according to Gan.
“We just couldn’t catch a break,” Gan said. “The very tough competition in the beginning of the year got us used to playing against great teams and as the season went on, we would play our best versus the best teams and play down to the level of the lesser teams. That explains our tough loss to Xavier and win against Dayton as well as the struggles against Fordham and Rhode Island. All in all, I thank everyone involved for their efforts and I have high expectations for this group moving forward.”
