Photo By Matt Durisko
By Matt Guear
The River Hawks men’s soccer team clutched its first win of the season.
Junior forward Max Paczewski scored once, notching an assist to help lift the Susquehanna men’s soccer team past the Elmira Soaring Eagles. The Hawks finished with a score of 3-1 on Tuesday, September 19 at Sassafras Fields Complex.
At the 32nd minute of the game, Susquehanna was awarded a free kick near the top of the 18- yard box, which Paczewski took. He placed the ball on goal but was denied by the Elmira goalkeeper, Asher Ellis. However, after deflecting around inside the 18-yard box, the ball came back out to Paczewski, and he buried it to put the River Hawks up 2-1. They kept that lead for the remainder of the game.
The scoring kicked off at the 8:27 mark when sophomore forward Martin Harguindey stormed down the right sideline and promptly placed a low and hard shot past Susquehanna goalkeeper, Santiago Andino, to make the score 1-0 in favor of the Soaring Eagles. However, Susquehanna quickly answered only six minutes later when Paczewski served a cross through the middle that deflected off of Ellis. The ball flew right to sophomore midfielder Angelo Zografos, who cashed in and scored the first goal of his Susquehanna career.
“It means everything, with all this work we put in, countless hours, it just feels good to get on the board,” said Zografos.
Susquehanna ended the half up 2-1.
The second half heavily featured SU’s defense. The Soaring Eagles were pressing hard to even the score, and at the same time, the River Hawks were desperately trying to connect on a through ball to score an insurance goal and put the game out of reach, all to no avail.
While attempting to defend one of Susquehanna’s through-ball attempts at the sixty-seventh minute, Elmira sophomore defender Olivier Rusch committed a foul from behind that earned him a red card and effectively docked his team down to only ten men for the remainder of the match.
Finally, in the seventy-ninth minute, the insurance goal for Susquehanna was scored by sophomore defender John Kuderka after he received a lead pass from sophomore forward Hayden Swinehart.
This win showed real heart from the River Hawks, and they hope to build from here. “It all started from the locker room, the guys were locked in,” said Zografos. “You have to give everything you got and take advantage of your chances and we did a good job of doing that tonight.”
The River Hawks are back in action on Saturday, September 23 at Wilkes University and will return to Sassafras Fields Complex on Tuesday, September 26 to take on Immaculata University.
