Men's soccer lose 7-2, bounce back for 2-1 defeat

The men's soccer team has almost got a routine going, and it's not really a good one. The team seems to have a habit of playing badly during their weekend game, kicking themselves in the butt, and then turning around to play well for their mid-week game. This week was no exception as the team lost 7-2 to Ohio Dominican University on Saturday and then dropped a 2-1 game to the College of Wooster in overtime on Wednesday.

"We had a good, solid first half," Coach Chris Barker said. "We were up 2-0 at half-time." Ohio Dominican is a very good team, and they have one player in particular, one David Flavius, who could be defined as pro-class. This lopsided half consistency is another bad habit that the Yeomen are trying to defeat.

"In the second half we started doing something for 10 to 15 minutes, then they scored one and we collapsed," Barker said. "We stopped gelling and clicking, their world-class player scored three goals." Flavius was moved from midfield to forward for the second half.

"In the second half things kind of just caved in on us," sophomore Jonathan Wilson said. "Our energy goes down in the second. We usually play a good first half, but then the first 10 minutes of the second can be our worst."

Our first half was excellent," sophomore Zach Fine said. "It was just a matter of coming out really excited and we couldn't sustain that. They were a much better team but didn't expect us to come out as fired up as we were."

Barker treated the Flavius scoring threat as just another player, though he had whoever was defending him make sure they were in his face through the whole game. "[Senior] JT Engelhardt marked him for most of the game and he did a pretty good job," Fine said. "There is only so much you can do though, you just can't spend so much time on that one player."

A look at the second half revealed many deficiencies. "We had no team concept," Barker said. "We were just kicking the ball and couldn't get it to our offense. If you play defense long enough the other team will score."

So, true to form, the Yeomen went back to the drawing board to reevaluate and plan for Wednesday's game against Wooster. "We always have great first halves," Barker said. "So I figure it must be conditioning. We went hard in practice on Monday and had a light Tuesday to make sure we were fresh for Wednesday's game." The team also took time to look at a video of the Ohio Dominican game.

"We have intelligent students here at Oberlin," Barker said. "Watching the film was good for the players to act as their own personal coaches and evaluate themselves."

"We saw things that we were doing right and wanted to keep doing right," Wilson said. "We need to play the ball better and attack as a team. We need to spread out."

The team put these things into effect against Wooster. "They're as good as any team we've played," Barker said. "We played a good, solid 90 minutes against them. We learned more about opening up our field of vision. When the field got clogged we would stop, drop it back and clear it to the other side. The players were thinking and had good evaluation."

The coach also liked his team's intensity. "There was no let-up in effort," he said. "When we were down 1-0 off a penalty kick you wouldn't know it, we were still playing strong. Our goal was a nice goal."

Senior Brendan Cody followed in a shot to even the score.

"We're a much better team," Fine said. "We should have won. Their goal was cheap. We had all kinds of scoring opportunities but just couldn't put any in."

"If it were not for that one bad call we probably would have had the game, " Wilson said. "We tied it for over-time and then blew it because of fatigue."

Saturday the team plays Pennsylvania State University at Behrend. They will then take the week off for midterms before driving to Vermont over Fall break for some hiking and two games against State University of New York at Plattsburgh and Castleton State University.

"They're a good team, they're very physical," Barker said of Penn. State Behrend. "We're very evenly matched."

Fine was more optimistic. "They're not that great," he said. "It should be a good chance to turn the corner and get some more wins towards the end of the season."

Settle!: Sophomore Zach Fine recieves the ball, settles, and prepares to make the play. The team has improved it's overall game play and knows how to evaluate and execute with intelligence. (photo by Matthew Green)