POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — On a rainy Wednesday night, the Marist Men’s Soccer Team hosted #12 nationally ranked Fordham Rams in a non-conference matchup. This game does not affect the team’s conference record but serves as a good tune-up for upcoming MAAC play.
Within the first 10 minutes, the Red Foxes started off strong with Skylar Conway and David Nkansah-Siriboe combining to slip through Allen Gavilanes, still looking for his first goal of the season, cut onto his stronger left foot but Fordham’s Ghanaian goalkeeper Rashid Nuhu did well to punch it away to safety.
Around the 28th minute, there was lightning near the field and the game was delayed for nearly an hour. The game would resume play and there would be no further weather delays.
Throughout the entire first half of the game, Fordham did not get one shot on target whereas Marist kept pressuring down the wings to try and get crosses off into the box.
At the beginning of the second half, Coach Matt Viggiano put in a couple substitutions to try to find another way to find the back of the net. One of the substitutes, Jonah Conway, pressured the Fordham defense to chip the ball straight to Gavilanes as he headed it into an empty net to get his first goal of the season and take a 1-0 lead.
Marist looked in the clear to pull off the upset but with five minutes remaining, a dangerous free kick from the Rams caused some confusion within the Red Fox defense as the ball fell straight to Joergen Oland. The defender made no mistake and smashed the ball into the roof of the net to take the game to extra time.
When the two teams went into extra time, the previous goal by the Norwegian lowered the momentum for the Marist team as they had a lack of chances in overtime, but defensively sound as it ended 1-1.
Marist felt like they should have put the game to bed in regulation and Coach Viggiano said that the result was “tough” and a “little disappointed” even though Fordham “had a lot of character”, the Red Foxes “probably deserved the three points”.
However, Marist could definitely “take a lot of positives out of this game” and they will take this lesson into future games this season.
“Going into extra time we were trying to keep ourselves together,” said junior Ernest Mitchell of the team’s talk after conceding the Fordham goal. He stated Viggiano told them to “keep their heads up” as their mentality was a big part of this match for the Marist players.
Edited by Marco Schaden