They played better, they played harder. Yet last Saturday, October 13, the Cabrini men’s soccer team was defeated by Elmira College in an overtime score of 3-2. What is the explanation for this defeat?
“Luck.”, says sophomore Outside Midfielder Steve Nield. “We played harder than them the entire game.”
On Saturday afternoon Cabrini fought Elmira to a 2-0 lead by half time. Cabrini was dominating the game, playing faster and more competitively than Elmira had been prepared for. Mike Rennie and Jason Catagnus both scored goals for Cabrini who was ready to take this, nearly their last home game of the regular season, all the way to a stunning victory over their competition.
After halftime their opponent’s luck seemed to change. Cabrini watched Elmira bring up the game with two goals of their own tying them 2-2. By the end, not more than five minutes into overtime, the winning goal was scored and Elmira took the 3-2 victory over Cabrini College.
The men are not broken by this loss however. In fact, exactly the opposite is true They played an incredible game on Saturday and they know it. With a captain hurt, having suffered a minor foot injury a few games back, some might have lost faith in his or the team’s capability. This is not the case for the team itself.
“Our captain was hurt,” says Nield of senior captain Michael Braun. “.but the other forward Jay [Catagnus] stepped up and scored. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to match their luck.”
The team feels prepared to face their opponents from now on. Even injured captain Braun seems to be giving his all to the fight in the hopes that Cabrini will go all the way this season.
According to the men, there is nothing to worry about. It was strictly luck that won the game for Elmira, and hopefully Gwynedd-Mercy will not be so lucky.
