Fans almost didn’t believe that the ball had gone in on Wednesday night. The stadium froze in silence. But when the Binghamton men’s soccer team crumbled to the turf in disappointment and Army stormed after freshman midfielder Shaban Abousaud, it was undeniable: After over 90 minutes of tense battle, Army scored the decisive goal in sudden-victory overtime.
The 1-0 defeat was particularly hard for the Bearcats (2-3) to swallow. The hosts had led Army (2-1-1) in shots during the first half and broke through Army’s backline frequently, creating better goal-scoring opportunities than their Patriot League opponent. Throughout regulation, the Bearcats applied constant pressure to the Black Knights and stifled the team’s offensive output as equally as Army stifled theirs.
Yet within the first two minutes of overtime, Binghamton pressed toward Army’s goal but lost possession. The Black Knights jumped on their best opportunity of the night – with many Bearcats downfield, they quickly transitioned to the counterattack, and Abousaud finished a cross behind junior keeper Stefano Frantellizzi.
“We ended up just playing in front of them and allowed them to get in behind us,” BU head coach Paul Marco said. “[Army] came out a little more direct in overtime to start it.”
Throughout the match, Army outshot the Bearcats, 7-5. Until overtime, however, none of the Black Knights’ offensive efforts were particularly threatening.
Though Army’s senior keeper Winston Boldt, who now leads the program in career shutouts (19), and Frantellizzi each collected just two saves apiece, Army’s defense had its hands full. Freshman forward Ben Ovetsky made breaching their defensive line look easy and senior forward Steve Celeste and graduate student midfielder Tommy Moon consistently drew the Black Knights back to their own goal.
“I thought that the guys up front did a great job,” Marco said. “We didn’t need to deploy a lot of numbers to get in behind [Army]. We were getting in with two and three players and I thought we were creating some pretty good scoring chances.”
In the last 10 minutes, BU was relentless. In the 81st, Celeste brought the ball just beside the goal when Boldt charged into him and awarded the Bearcats a corner kick. The shot flew straight to Boldt. The team forced another corner kick just two minutes before the end of regulation, but this time the ball flew just above the goal.
They may have been prevented from securing a better angle, but at least the Bearcats were on the right track during regulation.
“I thought we might get another quality set piece like we did late in the game,” Marco said of his overtime expectations. “We were getting in behind them and they had to start following us in bad positions for them and great positions for us. One of the things that I warned the guys about is that overtime is all about managing moments because it’s all about sudden victory or, sudden death. And in our case, we didn’t manage the moments very well.”
On the other end of the field, sophomore Charlie Novoth, seniors Jamie Forbes and Matt McCoy, and freshman Christian Dam made Frantellizzi’s life relatively easy. They worked effectively to flush the ball out while Moon and freshman forward Isaiah Barrett often stole possession to keep it from BU territory in the first place.
“Our guys did a great job defending,” Marco said. “The back four and the two wide guys in particular were very good. Matt and Charlie were quite good one versus one. Those were their two special guys, [Sean Mogan] and [Nick Williams], and I thought we did a great job on them tonight.”
In fact, neither of those two contributed to Army’s seven shots. Both of Army’s goals this year were scored by freshmen — Abousaud against BU and forward Mario Da Silva against Saint Joseph’s.
The Bearcats have three consecutive opportunities to make up the loss to their home crowd. Most immediately, they’re set to host Cornell at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Bearcats Sports Complex.