One of the best home environments that the Stony Brook men’s soccer team has seen this season — with screaming fans and a loud band — wasn’t enough for the Seawolves to overcome an early goal by Vermont in their conference opener on Saturday, Sept. 28 despite the added energy that showed in a futile performance.
“We created some good opportunities,” head coach Ryan Anatol said in an interview with The Statesman. “We didn’t finish the chances that we created. You always want to try to create more, but when you look at the run of play I thought we created more chances than they did. I thought we created better chances than they did. We didn’t finish our chances and ultimately that’s what came back to hurt us.” The Seawolves outshot Vermont 14-8 and flashed consistent offensive pressure throughout the game.
Vermont senior defenseman Adrian Gahabka scored the only goal of the game as he broke away from a Stony Brook defender and took a shot with only him and freshman goalkeeper Edmond Kaiser blocking the goal. The score in the 19th minute would hold for the rest of the game. The Seawolves played well, but not well enough to take the lead. “I think we dictated the majority of play throughout,” Anatol said. “We gave up a goal in transition, which we knew was what we didn’t want to do. Little disappointed we gave the ball up but overall I thought we did pretty good. Ultimately, we didn’t score a goal to get us back in the game.”
This game marks Stony Brook’s conference opener in the America East, and dropping this one could hurt later on for the Seawolves. “We know that when we start conference play we’re competing for points, and every point is important,” Anatol said, regarding how different conference games can be from the regular season.
“I think the familiarity is a part of it. We’ve played each other every year and some of the teams look fairly similar even though there might be different personnel as far as what you’re trying to do,” Anatol said. “I thought we were pretty prepared for them. They’re pretty consistent with the way that they want to play and I thought we did a good job preparing for them. I thought we did a good job in the way that we played. We just didn’t get the result.”
Stony Brook faces off against the Fordham Rams next week on Tuesday, Oct. 1 back home at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium, and resumes America East conference play against the New Hampshire Wildcats on Friday, Oct. 4.
