WESTERVILLE, Ohio — The Marietta College men's soccer team saw its chance to secure a first round tournament home game dashed Tuesday (Oct. 25) evening as Otterbein University beat the Pioneers 2-1. The Pioneers fall to 9-8-1 overall and 4-4 in the Ohio Athletic Conference. Otterbein moves to 8-6-3 on the season and 3-4-1 in the OAC.
"We must learn to play 90 minutes," Marietta head coach
Joe Bergin said. "We were very poor in the first half and you can't spot teams a two goal lead. We must bounce back for the playoffs."
Otterbein, fighting just to make the conference tournament, grabbed the early lead with a goal in the 10th minute. Noah Coons lofted the ball towards the goal where Erick Juarez-Manning headed it past Marietta keeper
Tyler Sholl (Johnstown, Ohio/Big Walnut) for his second goal of the season.
The Cardinals doubled their lead six minutes later. Jaden Lunger found Noah Coons in the box. Coons gathered the ball and fired a shot into the back of the net for a 2-0 Otterbein lead.
Marietta regrouped at halftime and managed to cut the deficit in half less than nine minutes into the second half.
Andy Rolfes (Cincinnati, Ohio/Princeton) tallied an unassisted goal, his sixth of the season, to make it 2-1.
Otterbein keeper Collin Hoffman refused to allow the equalizer. He recorded five saves in the winning effort. Sholl had five saves in goal for Marietta.
For the match, each team took 13 shots with Otterbein holding a slim 7-6 edge in shots on goal The Cardinals took five corner kicks, while Marietta took a pair.
Marietta hosts No. 3 ranked Ohio Northern University in its regular season finale at 3:30 p.m. on Friday (Oct. 28). The Pioneers have secured a spot in next week's OAC Tournament and still has a chance to earn a home game in the first round.
Fans can follow all the Pioneer teams all year long at
pioneers.marietta.edu. You can also follow the Pioneers on Facebook at
facebook.com/MariettaCollege and @MariettaPioneer on Twitter and Instagram.
