By Pat Tintle
Assistant Sports Editor
The men’s soccer team’s winless season continued last weekend when the Bonnies fell to Canisius and Bowling Green, by scores of 3-2 and 1-0, respectively.
Despite an 0-5 record, Coach Mel Mahler saw some good aspects to take away in both loses.
“I was happy how we played,” Mahler said. “(Bowling Green) had the leading scorer in the nation – he didn’t do a thing. I thought we defended well through just about the entire match. Their goal, give the kid credit, he created an opportunity for himself and finished. Right now, you get stuck with the record and a tough loss, and you have to work at seeing the bigger picture.”
The Bonnies held Bowling Green to a 0-0 score until the 77th minute when the Falcon’s broke the tie with a goal from Joe Sullivan. The Falcons went on to win, improving their record to 7-2.
“I think we played pretty well,” said senior midfielder Mitch Skrabacz. “We definitely had a much better second half, except for a little breakdown where, obviously, they scored. I thought we had a good game plan going into it with sitting seven back to defend. We worked on transition a little more, so that helped a lot.”
Although the Bonnies have lost every game they have played this year, Mahler does not believe that the 0-5 record accurately reflects his team’s performance this season. In fact, three of the five loses have been one score differences, with two of those being overtime loses to Niagara and Canisius – two competitive regional rivals.
“We’re not an 0-5 team,” Mahler said. “We’re probably the best 0-5 team in the country, if you want to look at it that way.”
One aspect that the Bonnies have improved on in their last two games has been taking shots on goal, according to Mahler.
“We’ve created chances,” Mahler said. “We created more chances than Bowling Green, and we created more chances against Canisius on Friday night. Everything’s been a positive except in the win column.”
With the Atlantic 10 Conference season around the corner, the Bonnies are remaining positive in the locker room, while still aware of the disappointing record they hold.
“We’re upset that we’re 0-5 and we’ve been struggling,” Skrabacz said. “We think there are some bounces that could go our way. We’re still looking towards the next game.”
The Bonnies have a busy week ahead of them as they play a home game today at 6 p.m. against St Francis (the team’s first game under the lights). The team will then fly to Missouri on Sunday to kick off the A-10 season with a 2 p.m. match versus Saint Louis.
Mahler and his team know that the start of conference play is a clean slate going forward and will look to strike first against the Billikens, who are ranked third in the country.
“We’re going to have the same game plan,” Skrabacz said. “But it’s going to be a lot more competitive, and we are going to have to go a lot harder. We have to work on finishing our chances a lot better. We defend pretty well, and we just have to finish when we get a chance inside.
While confident that his team will play hard, Mahler also recognizes the talent on Saint Louis’ squad.
“I like who we are as a team,” Mahler said. “I like our chances going into the A-10s. Saint Louis is an excellent team. They’re in the top ten in the country. They’ve also been a great opponent, and we’ve had good success against them. We beat and tied them here. We lost to them in the A-10 tournament. As I told the guys, this is a great weekend for upsets.”
tintleph11@bonaventure.edu
