The Binghamton University men’s soccer team got its first licks of the season on the road this weekend and boy, did it taste bitter.
The Bearcats dropped a pair of matches over the weekend at the Lafayette Tournament, losing to Villanova, 2-1, and Lafayette, 1-0.
The losses were the first two of the season for the Bearcats.
“We played two very good teams,” said head coach Paul Marco. “Lafayette was nationally receiving votes [and] Villanova is a good Big East team. I think both games could have gone either way. That’s how close the games were. We had moments where we could have won the game. They had moments where they did win the game.”
The Bearcats played Villanova on Friday. Wildcats midfielder Stephen Paresi netted a goal off of fellow teammate Matt Margiotta with less than nine minutes remaining in the first half. Villanova struck again 79:35 minutes into the match as Kevin Garcia scored a goal after a Binghamton foul. Less than a minute later however, freshman Jake Keegan came through with an unassisted goal, his first of the season.
“I think Jake is one of our freshmen who’s seen time,” Marco said. “He’s pushed good in certain areas and he is calm on the ball, he is able to connect the game for us. He’s a good attacking player. He’s got some great qualities for us.”
Despite the loss, the Bearcats outshot the Wildcats, 10-8.
Their troubles continued on Sunday afternoon as Binghamton was shut out for the first time this season by host Lafayette. After a deadlocked first half, Leopards’ B.J. Glenn netted the winning goal 10 minutes into the second. Lafayette outshot the Bearcats 11-7 for the game.
Although the team had a rough week, Marco did see some positives in the match.
“I think we showed the energy level required in the game,” he said. “We have a pretty good understanding of the energy that we can put into a game and that is extremely high. I think [sophomore] Ryan Walter and [junior] Scott Zobre did very well in midfield when it came to their energy levels.”
Marco also stated that there were specific things he wanted to work on with his squad, but he says that it will take time to see progress. The team, as far as he is concerned, is led by great leaders like seniors Kyle Kucharski, Liam Carson and Chris Terry who will not allow any adversity negatively affect the team.
“I think we need to be a little bit more productive with the ball,” he said. “I don’t put too much weight into the results of these two games. I think that we see some areas that we really need to try and improve on. It’s going to be weeks and I say it’s going to be weeks because some of these things take some time, but I also think that we are doing some things pretty well and we just need to keep building on those things.”
Still, the goal for the Bearcats is to go out and be champions at every match.
“I don’t like losing, period,” Marco said. “I know people say that you can learn valuable lessons from losing, but I try and learn a lesson from every experience, so if I have a choice, I’m learning from winning.”
Marco says that he has no worries about his team, and he is confident that there will be great times ahead. The Bearcats plan to head southwest to play Gonzaga and powerhouse UC Davis for the New Mexico tournament over the weekend.
“I think the team will be fine. It’s a young team. We have a lot of players who haven’t really experienced a loss yet so I think that’s huge to some of them, but it’s soccer; you win some and you lose some, but I think they will respond quite well.”
Justin Tasch contributed to this report.