Men’s soccer team goes 1-1 during weekend with victory over Cincinnati, loss to College of Charleston
The Frogs had an up and down weekend, winning their first conference game Friday, and losing to College of Charletson Sunday.
By Olga Bograd
Skiff Staff

With an impressive first conference win followed by a frustrating loss, the men’s soccer team showed its best and worst in two games this weekend.

The Frogs were able to hold on to beat Cincinnati 1-0 Friday, with senior goalie Michael Lahoud coming back and playing in his first full game since his groin injury earlier in the season. Lahoud did not allow a single goal and made eight saves.

The game started slow for the Frogs, not getting a shot on goal off for the first 34 minutes of the first half. However, they broke through with 31 seconds left in the half, when freshman forward Chris Carman headed the ball into the goal to take a 1-0 lead.

During the second half, the Bearcats struggled to catch up but were unable to penetrate the Frogs’ defense and never caught up on the scoreboard. Senior midfielder and co-captain Carrington Brown was very impressed with the win.

“Friday we withstood a pretty good onslaught from Cincinnati.” Brown said. “We went up there last year and got routed pretty bad for a number of reasons. Friday we played their weaknesses very well and that was just kind of spreading the ball really well and moving.

“This is a lot bigger field than they are used to and it’s a lot harder than they’re used to playing,” he said. “I thought we did pretty well just kind of wearing them down and taking advantage of the chances that we had.”

However, Sunday’s match against College of Charleston was a completely different story.

Playing without senior defender Jon Meyers and junior forward Aaron Miranda due to injuries, the Frogs were weak on both offense and defense, losing 3-0.

In the first half, the Frogs had two shots on goal, while the Cougars took nine. At the end of the game, the Frogs had the same number of shots on goal as the Cougars had goals scored.

Coach Blake Amos said he wasn’t expecting a lot of goals scored by the Frogs, but the three goals scored on them were also very unnecessary.

“Everybody had kind of a nice day off it looked like.” Amos said. “We’re not producing a lot of goals. That’s a known fact. We’re not going score 10 goals a game but we’re not going give up three goals a game either.

“Losing a game 3-0 isn’t an option,” he said. “Look at Friday; we didn’t score many goals but our defense held. We scored the one chance we got. Same thing could have happened today but our defense didn’t hold together.”

Lahoud was also not impressed with Sunday’s game.

“I don’t know if it was just because we were worn out from Friday’s game, but we just made a lot
of stupid mistakes.” Lahoud said. “Every goal came from one of our mistakes. Our game Friday, we didn’t have any of those mistakes and we were able to win.”