Recovering from a thrilling overtime loss to Wittenberg College on Saturday, the Oberlin College men’s soccer team secured a 1-0 victory at Defiance College on Wednesday. The Yeomen now stand at 9-9-1 for the season and 2-6 in the North Coast Athletic Conference.

Oberlin held the lead three times in the game against Wittenberg, with goals from first-year David Wilson, first-year Evan Childress and sophomore Max Hellerman. Childress and Wilson are the first year revelations on the team, both settling in well to their left side berths in the midfield and defense respectively. Hellerman has been pivotal to the Yeomen notching two goals and five assists for the season. The assists came from senior forwards Richard Braithwaite and Jay Rosenthal and sophomore midfielder Mitch Bartlett.

Wittenberg stole away the win with an overtime golden-goal, after equalizing three times during regular play.

“We played well against Wittenberg but can’t afford to make silly mistakes in the back, which is what we did that led to 3 of their 4 goals,” head coach Blake New said.

“Wittenberg was good enough to capitalize on our mistakes, though we matched our highest goal total in a conference game,” Wilson said.

In Wednesday’s non-conference win, another Wilson strike proved to be the decider in the 1-0 game. This takes Wilson’s goal tally to six for the season.
“The goal was set up by a deep ball to Mitch [Bartlett], who pulled the ball down the line, cut it back to the top of the 18, where I took a touch with my right and struck the ball in the far post side netting. It came pretty late, I saw the space, screamed for the ball, struck it straight on, it was probably the best strike I’ve had all year,” Wilson said.

Oberlin had a bad run over Fall Break, losing a series of close games: back-to-back 1-0 losses to Kenyon College and Earlham College, followed by a 2-0 loss to Allegheny College.

“We are all disappointed that we dropped the games over Fall Break, but there’s no doubting that the effort and desire were there. It’s frustrating because we lost four games in a row, and we mostly played well but were haunted by lapses at crucial moments on offense and on defense,” senior William Singer said.

On Saturday the Yeomen host the College of Wooster for their last game of the season at 1 p.m. on North Fields.

“Wooster is undefeated and ranked second in the nation, so that is all you need for motivation. It would be great to spoil their perfect season and we have a lot to play for as well. If we win we will be the first men’s team sport to be above .500 in ten years!” New said.