Heated conference rivals under the lights of Edith Robb Dixon Field, and now just add some rain. This was the scene at the men’s soccer game on Oct. 1 against Widener University. They made the 20 minute drive for a game that would use every possible minute.
Going into the game the team thought of this game as a must-win game against a local school that always brings a tough game. Brian Moran, junior midfielder from Aston PA., said, “Widener is always one of our out of conference rivals, and it always looks good for us to beat tough teams like them in our region.”
The game went a full 25 minutes before a score was registered. It came when Andrew Jacobs, junior midfielder, sent a cross into the box where Evan Hanauer, another junior midfielder, went into the air and headed the ball into the back of the net. Before the goal was scored there was a sense of frustration because Cabrini could not put a successful shot on net, after the goal though it looked like the team had finally found it’s rhythm.
Going into the half, Cabrini was up 1-0 on the tough Widener team. Cabrini was faced with a very tough defensive team but they were equally challenged on it’s end of the field. Outstanding defense was played by Troy Allen, sophomore defensemen, on numerous occasions. When he was forced to make a big play or important stop he would deliver.
At the start of the second half the momentum was clearly on the Cabrini’s side of the field. Then at the 20 minute mark The Pride scored the tying goal. The momentum quickly and suddenly turned against Cabrini. Now on their heels the Cabrini defense had to come up with a huge stop and with the defense banning together they were able to hold Widener until the end of regulation time.
This put them into overtime, sudden death where every play could be the deciding factor. As a team you take the field with hundreds of things on the mind. Moran was only thinking two things; get the momentum back and not defense but only offense. This is something that he and the team put into motion almost immediately, with multiple drives that either ended in shots going wide or missed opportunities.
The game then went into a second overtime where it later ended in a 1-1 tie. Afterwards, Coach Glen Jaskelewicz told the team that he was not satisfied with the tie. He was disappointed with the lack of urgency of the team to score goals throughout the entire game. The team as a whole had a sense of disappointment with themselves because of their lack of finishing a team that they should have beaten in regulation. “.As a team we couldn’t finish and it hurt us. Instead of scoring to make the game a convincing 2-0 lead, Widener scored, to tie up the game and take away all of our momentum,” Moran said after the game.
Even with the loss the Cabrini team was able to recover and even improve as a whole. The team as a whole was able to learn from their mistakes and move forward and past the tie. The team is relentless and unwilling to surrender, that’s why this team will be going far and will be going strong until the whistle sounds.
