By: Noah Nunez
General Reporter
After a long and tough game, the Owls’ lapse in defense left opponent Franklin Pierce University to score a last-minute goal in the second half of the game, ending the match in 2-2 on Friday, Sept. 18.
Going into the game, the university was confident in their team building and abilities even against a difficult opponent like Franklin Pierce.
“This was a tough, a really tough team we were playing against; Franklin Pierce is no joke. We knew their record, but we also believed in ourselves, and we knew that for us to get something out of this game, we would have to dig it out,” Head Coach Reuben Ayarna, said.
In terms of digging out the win, the university opened the game with the first goal by midfielder Gísli Ágústsson, a freshman, scoring his first goal.
This goal was then followed by Franklin Pierce scoring in turn, leaving the first half tied but with the Owls still feeling confident.
“We felt good,” Ágústsson said. “We felt we were better than them for the first time; there was not really much they did better than us.”
Going into the second half, midfielder Jeremy Martin, a graduate, was able to score the second goal for the university, bringing them ahead with what he believed to be great team building from his team.
This attitude is something the Owls have been prioritizing, given the new team, building up new players’ confidence not only in the game but out of it as well.
“It’s a new team, a lot of internationals, so we’re kind of still gelling, still finding our way, so these games help with that, and I think we’re going in the right direction,” Martin said.
The game, however, fell apart once Franklin Pierce was able to make their second point.
At the point in the game when they were able to score, it was too late to make any more progress, so as the clock ticked on, the university had to slowly come to the realization that the game was pulled away from them.
“I think our performance dipped a little bit after that goal,”Ayarna said. “But then the encouragement from the bench and their own self-belief made them want to try to get a win, and it became an end-to-end game anybody could have scored.”
The back-and-forth that filled the last 10 minutes was filled with screams and begs from the audience hoping for any chance at one final score to clear the game.
But for the players, it was clear from the end of the game where they needed to focus on their improvements in the game to prevent situations like this from occurring in any other games they have during the season.
“We definitely need to finish more chances from the net,” Martin said. I think that’s what we’ve been working on the last two weeks: not enough opportunities.”
Each start to a new season is going to have its rocky starts, and the university recognizes where they need to be improving and how to talk to one another about it.
At the same time, however, the Owls need to decide how they are going to prioritize these improvements and figure out how they are going to spread them to their new players if they want to keep the improvements consistent.
