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After losing their season opener to Army 2-0, the University of Maine men’s soccer team was able to earn a tie against California Polytechnic State on Sunday in the Black Bear Invitational at Alumni Field.
Entering the second half, the Black Bears were down 1-0 but left back Adam Chenault rifled a shot past Mustang keeper Jeremy Coupe to pull the Black Bears into 1-1 tie with Cal Poly.
“We were pressing hard and I was looking for anything that came my way and I took a touch and got a good shot on it,” Chenault said. “When we got into overtime, our main goal was not to do anything stupid.”
In the fourth minute of overtime Maine midfielder Kevin Forgett, accidentally touched the ball setting up Cal Poly a free kick three feet outside the box. The Mustangs’ shot ricocheted off the post. Maine’s best chance in the overtime came when freshman Jimmy Velas had his shot slide a foot wide of the net. Scott Athke Rivard was handed his second yellow card for fouling a player. The play resulted in the Black Bears’ numbers falling to only ten men on the field. His first card came for arguing with a referee over a call.
“One thing we wanted to continue to do was to still be aggressive even though we were a man down,” said Maine coach Travers Evans. “We still kept our four back system and we just removed our center forward.”
In the first half, the Black Bears relied on their defense to keep them close. The only collapse the Black Bears had was when the Mustangs’ Francisco Marmolejo played a through ball to Ronnie Silva, who slipped the ball past Mongeon for a 1-0 lead.
Afterwards, Maine was able to shut down the Mustang offense as Mongeon made some key saves.
The Vermont native’s biggest save of the day came when a McNall headed the ball on goal only to have his chance denied by Mongeon’s fingertips.
“We just want to keep improving because this weekend was the first time we have really played together,” Mongeon said.
In their first game of the tournament, after giving up a goal in the first half, a late Maine rally was crushed when Army used a counter-attack to score the second goal of the game. As Maine attempted to make one more push up the field, Army’s Pierre Hines intercepted a pass, finding John Kubeika, who was able put the ball past Mongeon.
“This was our first game out and we struggled a lot in the first half, but in the second half we were playing a lot better,” Evans said. “We were playing well and we just had one mistake and they used a counter-attack and beat us.”
After a first half in which Maine had two shots, the Black Bears increased their production to finish the game with nine shots on target. During the last five minutes of the half, the Black Bears attempted to create chances with forwards such as Rivard and Joe Corey crossing the ball, only to have them intercepted by Army keeper Matt Wesmiller. Maine’s last scoring chance before the Kubieka goal came when Corey took an off-balanced shot only to have it deflected.
During the first half, Army took the lead in the 28th minute as the Black Knight’s Lloyd Osafo passed the ball to Bill Watts who sent a shot past a diving Mongeon for a 1-0 lead. A minute later, Maine had an attempt to tie the game when the Black Knights committed a foul. Bernal was table to curve his free kick only to have Chenault’s header go wide of the net.
On Saturday, the Black Bears will play their first game of a four game road trip, as they take on the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Even though their September 28th game against Harvard in Brunswick will count as a home game, the Black Bears will not return to Alumni Field until October 6th when they play conference opponent Northeastern.
“Road games are always tough because you are traveling from place to place, but it’s something we are looking forward to facing,” said Mongeon
