Men's Soccer Falls at Springfield

Chris Kendrick (@CKendrick86)

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – The Elms College men's soccer team suffered a 3-0 setback against host Springfield College, 3-0, in a non-conference match at Brock-Affleck Field Wednesday night. The Blazers move to 0-2 on the season, while the Pride improve to 3-0.

After pressing the Elms cage early, Springfield finally broke through, when junior midfielder Curtis Bolduc (South Windsor, Conn.) gathered the ball on the left flank, and floated a ball to the backside of the cage, which was caught up to and headed in by Alvaro to give the Pride a 1-0 lead just 21:08 into the match.

Springfield College would extend its lead to a pair when sophomore midfielder Keon Haji (Shrewsbury, Mass.) got control of the ball at the midfield, dribbled through a pair of defenders, and chipped a pass to Alvaro, who fired a shot on cage from well outside the box, that sailed over the out-stretched hands of Curtin and into the back of the net to make it 2-0, Springfield.

The Blazers best scoring chance came in the 76^th minute as a Pride foul led to a Blazers free kick outside the box. On the free kick attempt, junior C.J. Dabkowski (Bristol, Conn.) rang a shot off the crossbar, and then junior Donald Whittle (Somers, Conn.) headed the loose ball towards the open net, but Springfield junior Tim Wood (Derry, N.H.) slid and knocked the bounding ball away from the goal to preserve the 2-0 lead. After back-and-forth play for a majority of the second half, Alvaro found the back of the cage for the third time when he came away with a loose ball after a battle between Christian Schneider (Douglas, Mass.) and an Elms defender, before chipping a shot into the lower left-hand side of the net to make it 3-0, Springfield, with 10:18 to play.

The Blazers will look to move into the win column this weekend when they hit the road for the Vassar College Tournament. Elms will face New Paltz State Saturday at 4:00 p.m. followed by a 2:00 p.m. match with host Vassar Sunday. Springfield will travel to Westfield State for a 12 p.m. match with the Owls on Saturday, September 10.

Source: (Springfield Athletics)

ELMS SOCCER