Neither the offense nor the defense could get it done for the Stony Brook men’s soccer team in its return home.
The Seawolves (3-3, 1-1 CAA) hosted the Merrimack Warriors on Tuesday at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium. They were unable to bounce back from their loss on Saturday at Elon, as they were never able to get it going and dropped the game 3-0.
Stony Brook was caught on its heels from the opening kickoff, as Merrimack had two shots on goal within the first five minutes of the game. Merrimack broke through in the 27th minute when forward Juri Schlingmann found himself wide open in the box to put in a shot off the left post from midfielder Min Jun Jang.
From there, things did not improve for the Seawolves. In the 61st minute, the Warriors doubled their lead off of a give-and-go play between forward Johan Felischer and midfielder Stefano Pesenti. The play cut right through the Stony Brook defense and ended with Schlingmann tapping in his second goal of the night. Schlingmann then capped off his big night with an assist to Felischer in the 84th minute for Merrimack’s third and final goal.
“The energy wasn’t there in the first half,” head coach Ryan Anatol said in a postgame interview with The Statesman. “I thought we did a much better job in the second half, but you can’t play 45 minutes and expect to win a game.”
The Stony Brook offense was nowhere to be found, as they were shut out for the second game in a row. The Seawolves only took one shot in the first half and did not register their first shot on goal until the 72nd minute of the match. The offense finished with three shots on goal, making this an easy clean sheet for Merrimack goalkeeper Alvaro Rodriguez.
Anatol said that the offense needs to perform better in several aspects.
“Moving the ball was too slow; our movement and our runs in behind weren’t good enough,” Anatol said. “When we got into the final third we weren’t decisive enough to get the ball in the box, so overall there’s a lot of things we have to improve on.”
Stony Brook will try to erase this loss from memory as they look forward to their next match against William & Mary. The game is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 17 at 12 p.m. William & Mary is coming off of a 0-0 tie against Old Dominion and currently owns a 1-2-3 record on the season. The Seawolves will look to snap their losing streak in what will be their third conference game of the year.
