By Danny Contreras
The CCSU women’s soccer team fell to Robert Morris following an own goal in the first half and two additional goals from Ayana Davis. While CCSU was able to score late in the second half courtesy of Jillian Cipriano, they still lost 3-1.
“Obviously we’ve backed ourselves into a corner now, and we’ve just dropped too many points,” said Head Coach Mick D’Arcy. “Mathematically we still can get enough points with the games remaining, but we’ve pretty much gotta go perfect from here on out. Based on the last couple performances, it’s gonna take a little bit of work.”
Coming in from a tie on Friday from the Red Flash the Blue Devils looked to bounce back with a win. However, an own goal at 36 minutes gave Robert Morris the lead.
As CCSU gained momentum in the first part of the first half, the game turned foul when RMU’s Holly Sieradzki came in hard on a CCSU player, which resulted in a yellow card for Sieradzki.
As much as CCSU was pressing on, so was RMU who scored at 36 minutes off a throw in. The ball was thrown by Katie Austin from deep behind the lines, making it into the 6-yard box, and bounced off a CCSU player into the goal to give RMU the lead with nine minutes left on the half.
The rest of the half finished with neutral possession as neither team broke away from the midfield.
The second half began in similar fashion to the way the first one had ended, with many battles on the midfield. On 50 minutes Maguire had one of the best chances of the game when a free-kick was given on the 15 yard line. She curled the ball into the top the corner of the goal but could not get it to dip enough to score; the ball hit the post and subsequently got cleared.
Minutes later, Davis scored to give RMU a two goal cushion. A cross from RMU from the midfield was caught by Nikola Deiter who bounced it as soon as she caught it. The momentum of the bounce put the ball out of her reach and into the path of RMU’s Davis, who simply tapped the ball in, making it CCSU 0-2 RMU.
Things went south for CCSU after that goal and impatience grew too strong for them. On 55 minutes Kureczka received a yellow card for holding on to the leg of a RMU midfielder following a collision. A minute later, after some miscommunication between a CCSU defender and Deiter, Davis intercepted the ball from the two and tapped in another goal to earn herself a brace and a three goal lead for RMU on 56 minutes.
At the one hour mark the Blue Devils had the chance to cut down the lead to two, after a free-kick was given from the 15- yard line. Maguire, however, saw her effort go high of the bar, not threatening Olin whatsoever. Moments later, Deiter saw herself substituted for Corey Medrano, a freshman goalkeeper from Danbury.
“We’ve got no one else to blame for ourselves. We had many chances and we just didn’t take them. We gave two very soft goals in the second half,” explained D’Arcy.
The Blue Devils got a consolation goal courtesy of Cipriano, who masterfully crafted the ball from a difficult angle following a corner kick from Rachel Cerrone. Having cut down the lead in half, CCSU used the momentum to create some of their best chances in the game.
“Today’s performance wasn’t great, we made a couple of big mistakes, we dug a hole, but based upon the chances, I believe we had the best chances in the game, we just didn’t take them,” said D’Arcy. “It’s a hard one to swallow, after Friday’s game against St. Francis, I thought we had the best chances there, too. We had a couple of chances in overtime but overall we should’ve finished it off in regulation time.”
The half ended shortly thereafter changing CCSU’s NEC record to 0-2-3, and 3-4-5 overall. They have won 3 points out of a possible 15 in the league. For CCSU to make the playoffs this year, the team would need to win the next five games to mathematically be able to fight for the top prize of the NEC Women’s Soccer League.
The next game is against Wagner at home on Friday Oct. 14 at 3 p.m.
