Victor Barbosa
Staff Writer
The Springfield College men’s soccer team (8-2-3, 4-1) dropped its second game in the last four tries on Saturday. The Pride dropped a critical NEWMAC conference game to Babson College (10-2-2, 4-0), 3-1, on Brock -Affleck Field.
A few minutes into the second half, the Pride seemed to take control of the game, and looked to be on its way to victory. At the 47:14 mark, junior Alex Reilly scored on an impressive, bending shot, with the assist going to fellow junior, Jake Miskin.
“The goal that Alex scored was a great goal for us,” Springfield coach Peter Haley said. “Jake Miskin played a great through ball. Our intent is to create quality opportunities and that was a good opportunity for us. We don’t create a lot of them, but the ones we do, particularly against Babson, I thought we did well in terms of finishing them off.”Six minutes later, however, the Beavers knotted it up on a goal from senior co-captain Max Walker. Walker’s initial shot was saved by Springfield’s goalkeeper, Brett Bascom, but the rebound was easily put in by Walker.
“You’re always looking for a senior or somebody who’s going to takeover, and that was the senior, Max Walker, who got that goal,” Babson coach Jon Anderson said. “As a team we moved the ball, played well, but certainly Max was the key to that, his energy and that desire to get that tying goal.”
The game then got away from Springfield as Babson scored two goals within two minutes of each other, beginning at the 62 minute mark. Bryan Rust scored what turned out to be the game-winning goal off a corner kick. The assist was credited to Walker. Just over a minute later, Walker again set up a fellow teammate. This time it was Ayo Iwuagwu scoring on a header.
“Our mindset was that we were going to come away with this one. That was a really tough loss. We played our game plan almost to perfection,” said captain David Chessen. “It was tough, but we were happy with how we played and we still have another conference game and the conference tournament. So, we’re looking forward to that.”
The Pride’s next game will be Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m. vs. Brandeis before heading into the team’s final NEWMAC game at WPI next Saturday.
Victor Barbosa may be reached at vbarbosa@springfieldcollege.edu