Three home games into its non-conference schedule and the Binghamton men’s soccer team remains winless at the Bearcats Sports Complex, most recently falling to Cornell, 1-0, on Saturday night.
Cornell (2-1-1) netted the game’s lone goal 30 minutes in and clung to the advantage to finish on top. The goal, which looked strikingly similar to Army’s on Wednesday night, came off a rebounded shot to the right of the goal: Junior keeper Stefano Frantellizzi blocked the first attempt, but Cornell sophomore forward Chris St. Germain connected on the rebounded ball and delivered a cross to senior midfielder Conor Goepel, who tapped it in from just beside the left post. The goal was Cornell’s second of the season, with both belonging to Goepel.
Despite the loss, Binghamton (2-4) can pull a silver lining from the team’s second-half performance. Feeling the weight of necessity as the clock wound down, the Bearcats maintained a high level of offensive pressure, contributing five of their eight shots during the second 45.
“I thought that we played with a tremendous sense of urgency the entire second half,” BU head coach Paul Marco said. “I thought that the guys came out of the locker room at halftime and really came with a sense of purpose in their play. I thought their performance was pretty good in the second half — certainly well enough to try and get us a goal back — but was disappointed the way we started the game at home.”
Senior forward Steve Celeste conjured some of his offensive dominancy from last year, recording four of the team’s eight shots. Both he and graduate student midfielder Tommy Moon put a shot on target. Sophomore forward Logan Roberts, freshman back Christian Dam and junior midfielder Bret Celeste rounded out the team’s shots with one each.
Atypical for BU was to hold an advantage in corner kicks — the team forced six while allowing five. On the season, the Bearcats have taken 18, their opponents 43.
On the defensive side, Cornell’s senior captain and goalkeeper Zach Zagorski made two saves to record his third shutout for the Big Red this season. Frantellizzi, in his third straight start, collected four saves.
Moving forward, Marco said he was glad that the team is not scheduled for another game until Saturday, as the week’s worth of rest will provide more time to enact changes.
“I think that the game plan we’ve been putting in and the change that we made at halftime [on Saturday] helped, but I just think it’s going to be a matter of if our guys show a little bit more effort in the first half,” Marco said. “They have to show that they’re not going to let an opponent come in and connect passes. I don’t think we’ve done that in any of our home games right now. We’ve let the opponent come in and kind of dictate play to us.”
Binghamton’s next two contests are slated to take place at home, so the team has the ability to get into the win column as hosts sooner rather than later. The first is set for 7 p.m. Saturday against Lafayette, with the second scheduled three days later against Syracuse.