The men’s soccer team lost by one goal against Neumann University’s men’s soccer team in the conference opener on Wednesday, Oct. 9.
“It’s a lesson to learn,” Davide Conigliaro, sophomore international business major and center back for the men’s soccer team, said after the opening conference game against Neumann University. “We’re going to go back to training and we’re going to see what we did wrong and what we did right and just build on that. That’s all.”
The men’s soccer team played a back-and-forth game at the turf field. The first half of the opening conference game was spent between the two soccer teams coming very close to scoring against the other but never quite scoring a goal.
“[Neumann] beat us in the championship last year, so one goal was to get revenge,” Nick Booth, sophomore right midfielder, said.
Many of the students and parents who attended the conference opener were very displeased with the behavior of the soccer players from Neumann University during the game.
“From the other players, it was kind of unnerving because most of the other players were pushing each other and all that,” Jennifer Montesdeoca, sophomore international business major and finance major, said after attending the opening conference game.
However, many of the players from the men’s soccer team and students believe that the referees made fair calls throughout most of the game.
“It was a rough game. It was tough,” Conigliaro sad. “You know people are going to be physical and the ref is only human. He can’t call everything. I felt it went both ways. The calls were pretty fair for me I would say.”
By the end of the first half, the game remained tied 0-0 between Cabrini and Neumann. After half-time, the second half of the game seemed to follow in the same back-and-forth pattern as the beginning of the game. About halfway through the second half of the game, a player from Neumann’s soccer team scored a goal, causing the score to become 0-1 in their favor.
Cabrini’s soccer team spent the remaining time of the game trying to score a goal against Neumann’s team. Though they came close several times, the men’s soccer team was unable to score any goals against Neumann during the opening conference game.
The final score of the conference opener was 0-1 for Neumann. Even though the men’s soccer team lost by one goal, the players kept their heads up and walked off the turf field with positive attitudes.
“It was just unlucky today. We’re going to go back to training and you know we’re going to keep at it,” Conigliaro said.
Despite losing the conference opener, the men’s soccer team plans to work harder in order to hopefully win their next conference game.
