Men’s soccer continued their losing streak as they were defeated by SUNY Oswego on Friday Sept. 27 with a score of 2-0 and fell again on Saturday Sept. 28, losing 2-1 to SUNY Cortland.
There were still many positives to take away despite these losses; mainly junior defender Sebastian Diaz’s first collegiate goal coming off a struggle for the ball which ended with Diaz briefly tying the game for Geneseo against Cortland.
After a historic 4-0 start, the men have lost their last five consecutive games, but with only two of these losses in SUNYAC conference play, the Knights still have seven remaining conference games to regain their place atop the standings.
The match versus Oswego was anybody’s game in the first half until a last-second goal before halftime put Oswego up 1-0. The Knights kept it close in the second half and had any scoring chance turned away by the Oswego goalie. The Lakers scored again in the 73rd minute to make the score 2-0, essentially guaranteeing a victory for themselves despite Geneseo’s best efforts.
Geneseo went into the game against Cortland on Saturday with hopes of redeeming their stretch of less than stellar play but again found themselves down as Cortland scored first in the 58th minute. This lead would be short-lived, however, as the efforts of Diaz on a play for the ball near the net finally paid dividends for the Knights in what was a remarkable shot that ricocheted off the crossbar and into the net tying the game at 1-0. The tie didn’t last ten minutes, as Cortland regained the lead and never looked back.
This game was far closer than the one versus Oswego, and the shots-on-goal tally supports this. The tally in the Cortland game was 13-11 in favor of Cortland compared to the 10-5 lead in shots-on-goal managed by Oswego in their win on Friday. While Saturday’s game didn’t turn out well for the Knights, it marked a considerable improvement, which the team hopes to continue going forward.
When asked about the team’s play over the weekend, Diaz said the team improved on Saturday and still has great faith in the team going forward.
“We lacked the energy and drive that we usually have against Oswego, but against Cortland, we played to the level we know we can play at and put up a solid display,” he said. “We need to focus on burying our chances and becoming more lethal offensively in order to punish teams and get results going forward.”
Senior defender Caleb Murthy furthered Diaz’s sentiments.
“Our team struggled in our first SUNYAC game against Oswego and lacked the energy needed to get a result. Against Cortland we came out much better and played a great game and had one of our players score his first goal for Geneseo,” Murthy said. “In the future, I believe our luck will begin to turn and we will [get] back in the playoff picture. The key to our future success will be in the leadership of the upperclassmen in dealing with adversity and the underclassmen following the leader’s commitment.”
With a team made up of mostly first-year players, Murthy is right when he says the team needs to have better relationships between the underclassmen and upperclassmen. The team’s hopes lie firmly in this relationship and hopefully, the team can work better cohesively in the future to make Murthy’s predictions come true.
The men are next in action Friday Oct. 4 against SUNY Plattsburgh at 4 p.m.