The best offense is a good defense.
It’s one of the most clichéd sayings in sports, but it often holds true. But for the men’s soccer team, defense has not been enough. Last weekend, the team competed at the Brooklyn Bridge Cup, losing to LIU Brooklyn and St. Francis Brooklyn. The Bonnies’ offensive drought stretched to three games as the team failed to score throughout the tournament.
In last Friday’s match with LIU, the beginnings and ends of the halves proved to be problematic for the team. St. Bonaventure gave up a goal less than three minutes into the game and another with less than three minutes to go in the first half. The game went scoreless for the next 35 minutes, until the Blackbirds netted two goals in the final 10 minutes of play to win 4-0.
The same problem persisted Sunday as the Bonnies gave up an own goal 3:38 into the game and eventually lost to St. Francis, 3-0.
Senior goaltender Bobby Diaz noted the importance of the beginnings and ends of halves.
“Coming into each game we need to be mentally strong enough, notably after this weekend in our back line, to say we will not allow them any chances in the first ten minutes of the game,” Diaz said.” If we do, we must handle it accordingly. At all costs, we must keep the ball out of our net early in games. That killed our drive as a team this weekend.”
Head coach Kwame Oduro agreed.
“When you spot teams early goals in the first 10 minutes, you make it hard to generate offense because the other team becomes more defensive,” he said.
Defenseman Matthew Lane, a junior transfer student, said part of the team’s scoring drought can be attributed to poor defense. Stating that he needs to communicate better with his teammates, Lane said Bonaventure did a poor job of controlling the ball.
“While we kept the ball well at times, we didn’t do so nearly enough,” Lane said. “We would work really hard on defense to win the ball back, and then lose it right away. Also, we didn’t do a good job of pressing as a team or retaining possession for an extended period of time.”
The Bonnies have had nearly a week to solve their problems, and they return to action tonight against Western Michigan in the Radisson Invitational in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The Broncos will look to improve to 4-0 while the Bonnies will be focused on ending their scoring drought.
“After giving up seven goals in one weekend, we need to stay sharp on the defensive end,” Oduro said. “When we do that, the goals will come.”
Despite conceding nine goals in three games while scoring none, Lane remains optimistic about the team’s chances to succeed this weekend and is focused on just one thing.
“I expect to win,” Lane said. “If we play the way we can for a full 90 min, we will get results from the vast majority of our games. It’s just a matter of finding that level on a consistent basis.”
Tonight’s game begins at 5. The team will stay in Michigan through Sunday when they take on the Detroit Titans at 11 a.m.
