William Halliday, Photo Editor
Men’s soccer (3-7-0 overall, 2-4-0 conference) fell short in a hard-fought 2-1 overtime loss against Wheaton College last Tuesday evening, Oct. 9, at Smith Field. Heading into the matchup, the Cardinals had struggled in the past few games, most recently in a 1-0 loss against Colby. The loss to NESCAC rival Colby was Wesleyan’s first loss to the Mules since 1978, the first time the two teams met. Despite the disappointing result, the lone goal for the Red and Black in this game marks the first career goal of midfielder Andres Marx ’22. Wesleyan now stands at 10th place out of 11 in the NESCAC conference standings.
The game started off with immediate action. At the 11:01 mark, Wesleyan had a great opportunity to score with a free kick by Sam Serxner ’21 from the right corner. However, this free kick was cleared by a Lyons defender. The first goal of the game was scored at the 15:02 mark by Wheaton, after an initial shot by Luca Novaes was saved by Wes goalkeeper Teddy Lowen ’22. The loose ball, however, was collected by Lyon forward Troy Mattos, who netted a goal in the bottom left corner to earn Wheaton an early 1-0 lead. This goal was soon answered by the Cardinals with less than two minutes before the end of the first half, when Marx was able to get past defenders, going one-on-one against Wheaton goalkeeper Peter Pond, netting a goal, and tying the game 1-1 at halftime.
At the start of the second half, the Cardinals looked to take the lead when an opportunity arose at the 56:50 mark. Christopher Textor ’22 passed the ball to JJ LaCorte ’22 for an excellent shot, but LaCorte’s shot was slightly wide right of the post. The Lyons also had a chance to take the lead at 63:25 with a shot by Brady Smith, but the shot went just over the crossbar. Although the Cardinals held a 9-5 shot advantage over the Lyons in the second half, they were unable to capitalize on any of these opportunities to score. In the first session of overtime, Wheaton’s Adam Waks was able to find the back of the net at the 99:46 mark, earning the Lyons a 2-1 lead which the Cardinals were unable to overcome.
“It’s always disappointing to not get a good result,” Chris Franklin ’21 said. “However, we had some very good moments within the game that we can look to build off of. The biggest takeaway from it was that a lot of guys were able to get on the field and contribute who may not usually get a lot of minutes.”
The Cards have much work to do, but their main focus is making the NESCAC tournament. Simply getting an opportunity at the postseason is crucial to any season.
Men’s soccer will have four more games in the regular season, all of which are conference matchups. Next up, the Cardinals will travel to Williamstown, Mass., tomorrow, Saturday, Oct. 13, to play against long-time rival Williams. The following day, in a continuation of their New England tour, Wesleyan travels an additional two hours to face off against Middlebury. The magic number for the Cardinals is two, which is the number of wins they will likely need in order to earn the eighth seed in the conference and get a shot at the NESCAC tournament. The Red and Black have missed out on the tournament for two seasons in a row and would love to see a change in their fortunes during this weekend’s doubleheader.
“All of our focus is now on Saturday,” Franklin said. “It’s the most important game of our season. The fact that it’s a Little Three matchup…. It doesn’t get more exciting than that.”
Franklin Ribli can be reached at fribli@wesleyan.edu.