The good news is that the Hiram Terriers’ men’s soccer team has rebounded after a three-match losing streak to start the season. But wins are still difficult to come by after the Terriers dueled Saint Vincent College to a 1-1 stalemate last Friday evening at Malsiumur Stadium’s Charles A. Henry Field in Hiram.
“We scored that first goal, and it was really good momentum and then I think Saint Vincent did a really good job of switching the play and did a really good job of keeping us from switching play and hats off to them for that,” said Coach Joe Chmura. “I think we took our foot off of the gas a little bit and there was a lack of urgency.”
It marked the second tie for Hiram (1-3-2, 0-0-0) in their last two matches. Although it was a tie, the Terriers believed it was as a match that they should have won.
“Obviously we did not play as well as we wanted,” noted sophomore goalkeeper Tyler Jurgensen. “We were not as composed on the ball and were not keeping possession like we would have liked to have and ended up letting them get a few more shots than we would have liked to.”
Holding a 1-0 lead after the first half thanks to a long-distance goal off the foot of freshman midfielder Erik Rangel Negerete inside the fifth minute of play, the Terriers’ lead quickly vanished at the start of the second half.
After the Bearcats pushed the ball into Hiram’s defensive third, they controlled possession into the box and launched a shot at the left side of the net. Jurgensen dove for the ball but it hit the left post and bounced back into play. Hiram failed to collect the rebound and Jergensen could not recover in time to block Saint Vincent’s second attempt as sophomore forward Mattia Sperette buried the shot at the 52nd minute of regulation, knotting the score at 1-1.
“Initially I saw the ball coming in and I do not know if it was flicked on or if somebody hit it but I thought it was going in backside, so I tried to go get it,” said Jurgensen. “It ended up coming off of the post and nobody picked up that last runner there and he ended up getting the game-tying goal.”
The Bearcats maintained possession for the rest of the second half, recording six shots at the net but Jergensen preserved the tie, recording five saves in the second half and finishing with a total of six.
In addition to tallying only two shots at the net in the second half, the Terriers’ struggles at gaining possession were compounded by the frequent stoppages of play that resulted in yellow cards against them, giving possession back to Saint Vincent.
According to the third-year coach, drawing so many yellow cards was not the sole reason for Hiram’s offensive woes but acknowledged that his squad became discouraged by frequently having to yield possession back to the Bearcats.
“You go into every single tackle and you foul, it kills your confidence a little bit,” he said. “It kills the momentum and disallows us from continuing to transition so I think it definitely affected us.”
Hiram’s foul troubles became worse when sophomore midfielder Taeven Genovese was issued his second yellow card of the match and ejected in the 80th minute of play. Jurgensen said that seeing their starting midfielder be thrown out helped motivate Hiram to rally to score a go-ahead goal but it was too late.
Although Hiram experienced another tie, Chmura said that it was an impressive performance from his defensive third, which had two freshmen starting because sophomore defender Simon Schonfeld was suspended for Friday’s match because he received a pair of yellow cards in the previous match and sophomore defender Cooper Williams was nursing an injury.
Although the Terriers have allowed two goals or fewer in all but one match this season, their offense is still not clicking and have only scored five goals in six matches.
Chmura said that it is has been a learning process for a young Hiram squad that consists of 35 underclassmen.
“We are a young team, and we are going to keep on improving but the mistakes we made at the beginning of the year, we are not making anymore,” Chmura sad.
Following a road match against La Roche University on Wednesday evening, the Terriers will host Muskingham University on Saturday night at 7 p.m.
