Ben Martin – Sports Writer
Bradley Robidoux – Contributor
In a physical affair, the Owls battled back from a two-goal deficit at halftime to end the game in a 2-2 tie against Le Moyne College on Saturday night.
After allowing two goals in the first half, the Owls responded with two of their own to tie the game up.
The first goal came from forward Leroy Best, a sophomore, with just over 33 minutes left in the half on a penalty shot.
“It’s kind of a relief, honestly; being in over half the season and not having scored. Good to get one in at the end of the day; the team is what matters,” Best said.
Best’s goal put the Owls behind one, and they would end up getting another goal from Karim Said, a midfielder freshman. The throw in went into Said, who passed the ball to Best.
“Obviously as a football player you like to score goals, and today I was lucky to be in that situation,” Said said.
Said’s goal was the last one the Owls would put on the board that night
“Our heart that we showed today; we can take that into the next one,” Said said. “We did not give up after being 2-0 down; it speaks great that we are able to come back after being down 2-0.”
Goalkeeper Devin Juan, a sophomore, had six saves in the second half including three in the final four minutes of play.
The stout defense in the second half was led by Juan, who amassed a total of nine saves in the contest.
“Our defenders closed off a lot of gaps so whenever the shots came through I had a clear view and I could get my hands on the ball,” Juan said.
Although the Owls had some second half heroics, the team should not have been in a situation where they needed them in the first place.
“I think that we needed to start the game a bit better,” Coach Tom Lang said.
long with improving upon the start of the game, Lang said the team could have been better at dealing with the ball throughout the game.
Best agreed with his coach saying that the team made a couple of bad decisions in the first 45 minutes of play that put them down two.
With the tie, the Owls’ overall record moves to 4-3-3 and their in-conference record goes to 1-2-2.
The Owls travel to their cross-town rival: the University of New Haven Chargers. The Chargers have an overall record of 0-6-4 and a Northeast 10 conference record of 0-3-3.
After the game, Coach Lang highlighted the effort of the team to not only come back but to not allow any goals either but also cited room for improvement.
“I felt we could’ve played better. I’m very proud of the boys for the way they came back down 2-0 and tied the game but I think we need to play better,” Lang said.
When Coach Lang was asked about the upcoming contest against the University of New Haven, he said
“We look forward to this. The conference is extremely difficult, obviously. We recognize that they are a local rival.
We get that; we understand that; but it’s about us trying to be better at what we do and right now we are still making too many mistakes and we need to clean up some things,”
With a short turnaround from Saturday’s contest to prepare for the match against the University of New Haven, Juan had the response you’d expect: be ready to go down the street and compete.
“We are ready to go,” Juan said.
