POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y.— The September temperature chilled to a crisp 62 degrees at Marist College Wednesday Night, where Tenney Stadium lit the night’s sky while the Marist Women’s Soccer team played against Army West Point in their second home match of the season.
After suffering a head injury in a loss at Yale on Sept. 9, starting goalkeeper Abigail Renaud was kept out of the starting lineup, raising concern for her health status entering the game.
Renaud was healthy for the game, according to Head Coach Leigh Howard. Yet still, the nod was given to Francesca Guzzo—a decision Howard said was “based on training.”
For the first 25 minutes of the match, Marist’s approach was to play long balls to Redshirt Freshman Anna Davies. Howard quickly saw the tactic wasn’t working, and brought on Freshman Victoria Colatosti to bring more pace into the team instead of strength and height.
The entire first half was a difficult battle in the midfield, as Senior co-captain Alexis Prisco struggled to press Army back to their half of the field.
The second half was a completely different match offensively for both teams.
With some help from sophomore Junior Jillian Colucci and Keri Bradley, a Kristen Reilly diving header into the net gave Marist a 1-0 lead early in the second half.
However, the Marist lead was short-lived, as a Trinity Garay goal at the near post put Army back into the game.
The match looked destined for extra time until a cross on the left-hand side of the field went past Prisco and was taken down by Army’s Erynn Jones, who fed it to an open Sarah Chamberlin who calmly put it past Guzzo to complete a comeback victory for the Black Knights.
Howard said that the result showed after “the pressure that [Army] were putting us on in the second half.”
“It’s a disappointing result, as a better part of the game went back and forth,” said Howard.
Marist travels to New Rochelle on Saturday to begin their conference play against Iona.
Edited by Matt Rzodkiewicz