STEUBENVILLE, Ohio — Due to scheduling quirk involving game officials, the Marietta College's men soccer team had to postpone their home contest with Franciscan University the day prior and change it to a road contest Thursday (Sept. 14) evening. Despite outshooting the Barons 22-16, Marietta could not overcome a first half deficit and would go on to lose, 3-2. Marietta falls to 2-3-1 overall, while Franciscan improves to 5-3 on the season.
"Certainly, I'm unhappy with the loss. I hate losing, the team hates losing," Marietta head coach
Joe Bergin said. "But there are some positives from the game. I genuinely believe our offense is starting to get on track. Reggie is back scoring and we are getting good looks. Having said that, our mental approach for 90 minutes has slipped and it showed with two goals against us in 11 seconds. That has to sharpen back up."
Statistically, the Pioneers controlled the contest and even nabbed the first tally of the game when
Reggie Grayek (Shavertown, Pa./Wyoming Seminary College Prep.) fired a shot to the upper left-hand quadrant of the net in the 27th minute.
Franciscan was able to even the score with nine minutes left in the half as Aiden Mahoney sent a shot past Pioneer goalkeeper
Joey Backhaus (Canfield, Ohio/Canfield). The Barons, on the very next possession grabbed the lead, just 11 seconds later, as Augustine Rubino scored off of a Jonathan Schriner assist. Even though Marietta outshot the Barons 8-5 in the first half, they trailed 2-1 at halftime.
The two teams battled for the first 14 minutes of the second half without any change in score. In the 59th minute, Franciscan extended the lead with a goal from Kolbe Rice to make the score 3-1. Marietta cut the deficit with less than three minutes remaining.
Payton Maynard (Middletown, Ohio/Lebanon) shot and scored to put the score at 3-2, but the Pioneers were not able to get the equalizer and lost the match with that same 3-2 score.
Backhaus faced six shots on goal in his 90 minutes on the pitch and recorded three saves.
Jax Mautone posted six saves in the winning effort.
Marietta returns home to play Roanoke University on Saturday (Sept. 17) at 4:30 p.m.
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.
