By Andrew Grossman
Correspondent
The men’s soccer team has faced a lot of adversity this season. After a difficult battle to stay above the .500 mark to qualify for the postseason, however, they came up just short in the second-to-last game of the season. A convincing 5-1 loss to New Jersey City University was the final blow, ultimately eliminating them from playoff contention.
“If we won that game, we could have potentially made it to the NJAC Tournament, but now that’s not going to happen anymore,” junior midfielder Kevin Shaw said. “It is very disappointing because at the beginning of the year I thought we had enough talent to do well this season.”
Standing with a current record of 5-7-4, the team tended to struggle in the key moments.
“It’s been one of those things where all the games which we lost were one goal games,” Head Coach George Nazario said. “A little bit of luck either way and we could have had more ties or wins, too.”
The Lions’ season was defined by close matchups. Of their 16 games, seven of them went into overtime. None of those, however, resulted in a win.
“During the times when we needed it the most, we could never get that win,” Shaw said. “Our record kept on getting worse and worse where it eventually became too late and difficult to come back.”
Those struggles however, were not from a lack of effort.
“We played well most of those games but gave up one goal to tie it up or for them to win,” Shaw said. “We never gave up and everyone played hard, but unfortunately the games just didn’t go our way.”
“I always tell (our players) that you have to have a good team, you have to have a little bit of bench, and you have to have a little bit of luck,” Nazario said. “I think on the luck end we really haven’t had any this year … so hopefully it is going to eventually balance out.”
Although very disappointed, the team will look to eventually shake off this upsetting season and stay focused.
“I don’t think many changes need to be done for next year,” Shaw said. “We just need to keep playing hard and hopefully score goals and get more wins.”
