After a successful start to the season and suffering only one loss in their first nine games, the Geneseo women’s soccer team fell to SUNY New Paltz 0-3 and SUNY Oneonta 0-1 at home Friday Sept. 30 and Saturday Oct. 1, respectively.
Over the course of the weekend, the women failed to profit from their home field advantage, dropping them all the way to seventh place in the SUNYAC women’s soccer standings.
“The weekend as a whole was disappointing for us … it was disappointing because we have played some pretty good soccer the first half of the season, and to have the performances we had this weekend was just not up to par with what we know we can play,” head coach Nate Wiley said. “Being at home and losing both conference games really puts us in a hole.”
In the opening game of the weekend, New Paltz jumped out to an early lead with the opening goal of the game at the 9 minute, 36 second mark of the first half. The goal was a result of a weak effort to clear the ball from deep in the defensive end by the Knights.
Successfully clearing the ball from its own end came back to bite Geneseo once again in the second half as New Paltz took advantage of a play similar to the one resulting in the game’s first goal.
“From [one] 18 [yard box] to [the other] 18 [yard box] I thought we did alright. We just didn’t take care of things inside the 18s, neither defensively nor on the attack. New Paltz didn’t have a lot of opportunities, but they took advantage of the opportunities that they had,” Wiley said.
The uninspired play by the Geneseo defense was most exposed in the waning minutes of an already lost game when they allowed a goal on their own end. While in pursuit of the ball, Geneseo’s sophomore goalie Julia Sanger and another defender slid into each other and the ball ended up in the back of the net.
“They had two good chances and scored three goals,” Wiley said. “New Paltz is a slightly above average team playing with a lot of confidence, and you can see what that can do to a good team unfortunately not playing with as much confidence as we should.”
Geneseo did not have much time to recover from the defeat as they faced perennial powerhouse Oneonta the next day.
“We talked a lot about giving everything you had regardless of the outcome of the game. I wanted us to give the effort that we know that we can. I thought for the most part we did,” Wiley said.
This time though, giving everything they had was not enough for the Knights. Oneonta scored the lone goal of the game in the 53rd minute to hand Geneseo its second straight loss.
“We played with a lot of urgency late in the game … we need to be able to play with that type of urgency for the whole game and not just after we go down a goal,” Wiley said.
Wiley looks to replace any complacency his team may have gained from their great start to the season with urgency during training sessions this week.
“Every team is going to have ebbs and flows to their season. It’s just a matter of recognizing that this is one of those downward cycles and how do we stop that and turn it around,” he said. “You like when with your bad games you still figure out a way to win … unfortunately for us our weaker performances we didn’t win and now we have to figure out a way to turn it around.”
Geneseo looks to gain its confidence back as they visit non-conference foe Keuka College Wednesday Oct. 5. The Knights’ next chance to gain some points back in conference play is Saturday Oct. 8 as they travel to SUNY Brockport.