Edgar Ayala – Sports Writer
A goal by junior Kieran DeBiase wasn’t enough for Southern, as they ended up falling to the University of New Haven 2-1 Saturday night at Jess Dow Field.
After being down 2-0, the Owls goal came in the 81st minute. Marissa Pearson passed the ball down the left sideline of the field for DeBiase to dribble past a UNH defender and curl it into the top right corner of the goal. This was her first goal of the season.
The loss now brings the Owls to 3-5 on the season, while the Chargers improve their record to 7-2-1.
Head coach Adam Cohen gave credit to UNH’s defense, adding that the team had opportunities to score more goals but didn’t manage to finish them.
“We stuck to our game plan,” Coach Cohen said. “We were down at the half so we made a couple adjustments. We had chances, we got to the final third of the field, but just needed a bit more execution on our side.”
Freshman Megan Richardson echoed Cohen’s words: the team now knows what they need to improve on with the loss.
But just as the first half was coming to an end, the Chargers capitalized on an opportunity with two minutes left in the first half.
Shannon Enright and Marisa Garcia played a one-two pass inside the box, as Enright smashed the ball of Garcia’s pass into the bottom of the top crossbar, resulting the ball to bounce back down and squeeze past the goal line.
It’s a tough call, from where I was standing it was hard to tell,” said Richardson. “I couldn’t really tell if the ball crossed the line or not, but I respect the referee’s decision.”
A tough call it was: the referee had to check back with his assistant to see if the ball did indeed cross the goal line.
“That’s one of those things were you have to watch the tape, but it was close,” said Cohen.
The first half ended with the Chargers up 1-0 at halftime. As the wind kept blowing and people in attendance started to shiver, the Owls were the ones fired up to play the second half.
In the 63th minute, a long through pass in the air by UNH Taylor Szyarto found Garcia to control, dribble, and shot it past Erica Ridella’s right side. This gave the Chargers a comfortable 2-0 lead with 27 minutes to play.
With nine minutes left, DeBiase’s goal tried to push the game into overtime.
“Kerri’s goal was great. I could tell as soon as she started to drive the ball towards the goal that it was going to go in,” said Richardson. “She works really hard, and that helped contribute to our chances to score.”
Unfortunately, the Owls weren’t able to keep their winning streak alive as their cross-city rivals handed them their fifth loss of the season.
After the loss, Cohen said the team needs to forget about the defeat and recover mentally and physically to prepare for their next opponent.
“It wasn’t our best game but it wasn’t our worst either,” Richardson said. “I thought our team played well but we just couldn’t capitalize on our opportunities to put the ball in the net.”
Photo Credit: Edgar Ayala – Sports Writer