Photo By Christian Vetrone, Photography Editor
By Cam Eberly
Despite consistent effort, SU men’s soccer fell to the Goucher Gophers Tuesday evening.
Goucher netted a goal in the first two minutes and rode that momentum the whole game to defeat the River Hawks 2-1 at Sassafras multicomplex fields.
With this loss, the River Hawks fell to 3-7-2 overall, 1-4 in Landmark conference play. After scoring the first goal on a through ball, Goucher kept the pressure on throughout the first half. The players were in SU territory for most of it. However, the Hawks defense stood strong and did not give up another goal on nine Goucher shots. Sophomore goalkeeper Tony Burns had three of his five saves in the first half.
“It was an unfortunate goal, and it hurt us. But at the same time, we put our heads down and realized we had a lot of the game left, and that we were going to have a lot of opportunities to score,” said junior captain Max Paczewski about the early deficit.
The second half looked promising for the River Hawks as they came out of the intermission and put immediate pressure on the defense. But in the 69th minute, Goucher delivered a momentum-shifting goal to give itself a two-goal cushion.
Susquehanna remained persistent to put one in the net. In the 79th minute, Max Paczewski sent a through ball into the box to John Destil which led to a foul on Goucher. Paczewski then delivered his team-leading eighth goal of the year on the penalty kick that resulted from this foul. This cut the Goucher lead to one with just over ten minutes remaining in the game.
However, two minutes later, Susquehanna was given a red card and had to play the last eight minutes down a man. Even with this, the Hawks had two shots that just missed and suffered a tough home defeat.
Looking ahead, the River Hawks will try to get back into the win column as they travel to Moravian (3-5-4) on Saturday for an afternoon match.
When asked about the game on Saturday, Paczewski said, “We have to understand that Moravian is a good team; we have to come out hot against them and do everything we can to get the win.”
