The State University of New York (SUNY) New Paltz men’s soccer team followed an overtime loss with a win on their current five-game SUNY Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) road trip.
The team lost the first game of their trip 1-0 to the Oneonta Red Dragons on Sept. 28. After almost a week’s rest, the team traveled to Western New York to play the 9-1 SUNY Buffalo State Bengals on Friday, Oct. 4.
It took 11 minutes before the ball found the back of the net, with Buffalo’s fourth-year forward Ali Shawish scoring his fifth goal of the season, assisted by second-year forward Theo Pencic. A little more than five minutes later, the Hawks answered with an unassisted goal from second-year forward James Maltes, tying the game at 1-1. Surprisingly, a yellow card was handed out to the entire team after fourth-year midfielder Coltan Goodwine committed an infraction.
The second half saw a flurry of shots from the Bengals, but none found their way into the net as the Hawks’ defense tightened up to keep their shots driving wide of the goal. At the end of regulation, the Bengals had 20 shots compared to the Hawks’ nine. The game remained tied at one as the teams went into overtime.
After a yellow card on New Paltz’s first-year midfielder Brandon Davenport, the first overtime was controlled by the Bengals, who put up three successive shots in the last moments of the extra minutes. With the score still locked at 1-1, a second overtime was needed to decide a winner.
It didn’t take much longer for the victor to be decided. In the game’s second overtime, at 101:59, Bengals’ third-year midfielder Nemanja Simic scored the game winner with an assist from Shawish, delivering a crushing blow to the Hawks after battling for over an hour and a half. Buffalo finished the game with a whopping 25 shots to New Paltz’s 11.
Following up their tough loss, New Paltz traveled to SUNY Fredonia the next day to play the Blue Devils.
Over half an hour into the game, at 30:13, the Hawks struck first with a goal from third-year midfielder Kevin Doorley, assisted by first-year defender Michael Horner. Despite two shots from the Blue Devils in the initial stage’s closing minutes, the first half concluded with no major action. Nine minutes into the game’s latter half, fourth-year defender and team captain Luke Dole rifled the ball into the net to give New Paltz a 2-0 lead after an early five-shot flurry from Fredonia. The Blue Devils continued to put on the pressure for the remainder of the game, with six shots following the second Hawks goal.
With less than six minutes to go, at 84:10, Fredonia’s third-year midfielder Jackson Retzer put his team on the board making the match a one goal game. New Paltz’s defense held on for the remaining few minutes, giving them the much-needed 2-1 win. Third-year goalkeeper Marc DePasquale finished the game with six saves on seven shots. The victory was the Hawks’ first conference win of the season. Additionally, the win put their overall record at 6-5-0 and 1-2-0 against SUNYAC opponents.
The Hawks conclude their road trip with games against Cortland on Friday at 4 p.m. and Oswego on Saturday at 2 p.m.
