After an electric start, the men’s soccer team stumbled through the last 75 minutes of play, leading to a 2-1 loss to Robert Morris on Saturday afternoon.
The game was off to “the best possible start,” head coach Craig Jones said. Senior forward Tyler Ranalli, who was ranked second in points in the A-10 entering the game, poked a deflected shot by freshman Garrett Heine into the net just four minutes and 17 seconds into the game for his sixth goal of the season.
But if the Colonials (3-6-0) were Cinderella, the 15-minute mark of the first half had to be midnight. Suddenly, GW became a team that just couldn’t get to the ball first, a team that seemed to stagger in the sweltering, surprising October heat and a team that shot the ball just twice in the final half hour of the first half.
“We played well for 15 minutes and obviously we slowly lost the tempo that we originally came with and the game started kind of drifting away from us,” Jones said.
And Robert Morris (5-3-2) took advantage.
It took only seven minutes past the 15 minute mark for the Colonials lapse in energy to cost them their lead. RMU’s Neco Brett took advantage of what sophomore goalie Jean-Pierre van der Merwe called a “tactical error” on defense, catching the GW backline out of position for a goal from four yards off the right post to even the score.
“Teams are not beating us, we’re beating ourselves,” Jones said.
Brett found the back of the net again in the 73rd minute of play, beating his defender and van der Merwe with a lasered shot into the bottom left corner of the goal that brought the game to its final score of 2-1.
“We turned the ball over then when it was 1-1 and we still were in the game, we hadn’t played our best soccer but we were still in it but we give the ball away 20 yards from our goal and we get punished,” Jones said.
The Colonials found some of their original energy towards the game’s end, shooting the ball eight times in the second half. But the renewed vigor was too frantic to bring real results.
The game took on a violent tone, as the Colonials showing their frustration by shoving Robert Morris’ players when they came into contact. Both teams were fouled eight times in the second half, after a combined five in the first.
“I think today is one of those days where if the ball bounces half a yard the other way, we probably would have scored. Right now we’re on a bit of a losing streak, those are the balls that don’t go in. That’s the game sometimes, you have to create your own luck,” Jones said.
The Colonials will look to rebound as they begin A-10 play on Friday at 7 p.m. on the road against No. 18 Dayton.
