Mens
Soccer Finishes Disappointing Season
by Ben Pred
The
fall sports season has come to an end, and the final tallies are
in on Oberlin mens soccer. The injury-plagued Yeomen finished
the year with an overall record of one win and 14 losses, and a
North Coast Athletic
Conference (NCAC) total of zero wins and nine losses.
It was just that kind of a season, Coach Blake New said.
We started to play better in the last couple of weeks, but
we had lots of injuries. The team started out the season short-handed,
with three of last years players sitting out, including last
seasons high-scoring, sophomore forward Jesse Kipp, who tore
his ACL and missed the first month of the season.
Oberlin lost their final five games of the season. On Oct. 10, Allegheny
defeated the Yeomen by the score of 4-0. That Saturday they lost
to Hiram 5-2. Wednesday the seventeenth they lost 5-3 to Wooster,
on the 20th they were trounced by Earlham 5-1, before losing on
the 24th in a nail-biter to Wabash 2-1.
The last few games of the season were all tough for the Yeomen,
but there were some bright moments. In the loss to Earlham the team
was able to keep the number of shots to a minimum, and the Yeomen
were only out-shot 14 to 12. Sophomore Phil Kreniske scored one
of his four goals in that game. However, the frustration of that
game led to warnings for Kreniske, Coach New and junior goalie Simon
Spaid.
Jay Rosenthal got his first assist of the season in the loss to
Wooster on a goal by Kreniske, and sophomore Issaku Kohl also came
through off an assist by Kipp. Senior goalkeeper Yoav Tal also had
six saves.
The game on the 24th against Wabash was a good effort by the Yeomen:
they out-shot Wabash 10 to six, and beat them on corner kicks by
three. However, the defense was not able to prevent two goals scored
by Wabashs Brandon Hall and Carlos Aquire, and thus Kreniskes
goal off an assist by junior co-captain Rich
Braithwaite went to waste.
On the whole, the Yeomen had a rough season. Plagued by injuries
and with a largely young, inexperienced team, Coach New probably
phrased it best, Were going to look at this season as
a bump in the road.
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