BRUNSWICK, Maine – The Husson University men's soccer team suffered its first loss of the season on Sunday afternoon at the hands of No. 6 Bowdoin College, with the Polar Bears earning a 6-0 victory over Husson at Pickard Field.
The action started fast and furious as Bowdoin (3-0) found the scoring column first in the seventh minute of play when Felipe Rueda Duran played a low cross towards the middle that slowly made its way across the Husson (1-1-2) six-yard box and was fired into the back of the net by Paul Cluskey to give the Polar Bears the early lead.
Bowdoin looked to add onto their lead just two minutes later, as Julian Juantorena placed a free kick from just outside the 18-yard box over the Eagle's four-man wall but junior goalkeeper Alex Rechsteiner was able to punch the ball out of play and keep the Husson deficit at 1-0.
The Eagle's best chance of the opening spurt came in the 17th minute when senior Mosi Masimango had a penalty kick chance after a Husson player was taken down inside the box. Masimango looked to have placed his penalty well into the right side of the goal but Alex Ainsworth made a diving save to help preserve the Bowdoin lead. The action slowed down for the remaining 25 minutes as the Eagles went into the halftime break with a one-goal deficit.
The Polar Bears were able to tack on two goals less than ten minutes into the second half to help pad their lead and would add three more goals to earn the non-conference victory.
Rechsteiner played the full 90 minutes in net for Husson and made eight saves on 14 shots.
"Today was a bad day for us," said head men's soccer coach Gavin Penny. "It's never easy coming here and playing against their pool of quality, but I thought we were right there with them even after conceding a sloppy goal early on. We had some chances to get back on level terms, but it wasn't to be. We gave them another goal early in the second half and then things just went against us. We can't control everything and these things can completely change a game. That happened and then we sort of fell apart towards the end. The third and forth goals knocked the stuffing out of us and that was that. It's a shame because we put in a big effort. I don't think anyone would look at it as a 6-0 game. As I said, it was a bad day and we need to learn from it and move on."
The men's soccer team will now turn its attention to North Atlantic Conference play as they will open conference action with a rematch of last year's NAC East Division Championship game against Thomas College. Kick-off for this conference opener at Boucher Field is set for 6:30 p.m.
