Louisville 1, Men's Soccer 0: Cardinals Tag Friars With First Loss

Only after their loyal stopper, Timothy Murray, had leapt to his right to make a double-palm block on Gerardo Chavez, who had smoothly circumvented defenders Justin Kahle and Michael Narciso, did the Friars long-barren strike force perk up.

 

At that point, the 29^th minute of the opening half, Chavez had made the Louisville Cardinals a decent two-for-three in terms of SOG precision, their other stab finding the back of the cage courtesy of John Jonke at 7:15. Afterward, Providence finally hatched the egg on its shot clock and ran up an 8-2 discrepancy in terms of mere attempts for the rest of the half.

 

By the final horn of the day, the Friars were up, 16-13, in the way of shots, and up in terms of corner kicks taken (10-7). But with no change in their trend of futility, they let the 1-0 deficit turn to stone.

 

Every sign building up to the end result was favorable enough. Feisty senior middie Ryan Maduro –who by his output in the first six games this season may as well have been in Portugal, as rumors held all last winter- blasted off for five of his team’s registered stabs. Sophomore Alex Redding, granted just his second start of the year after the promise he had sculpted late last season seemingly disintegrated, resurged for three boots of his own.

 

From that angle, the Friars everyone got to know in the brighter days of 2007 could unmistakably have been back yesterday, if not for Louisville’s instinctive coverage of Maduro and Redding and rookie goalkeeper Andre Boudreaux’s dignified responsiveness on PC’s infinitesimal three shots on net.

 

And so, Providence is officially scoreless in its last three full games and 386:44 of overall playing time, dating back to Timothy Ritter’s conversion at Holy Cross 17 days ago.

 

The disparately bright facet was, of course, that Murray had consumed a similar run of shutout action all for himself, effectively keeping his club –four goals for and all- from making its first dip into the L column. But yesterday, his impeccability expired at 336:37 when the Cardinals –who have been good for a substantial 12 strikes in their first seven games- pounced on their second free kick of the day in just the eighth minute.

 

Senior midfielder Aaron Clapham –whose later shot in the 75^th minute effectively knocked defender Kevin Neumen out of the game when Neumen sacrificed his mug to divert it- let a nimble bender skip through a dense collage of bodies. Jonke got a piece of it and whipped it home to the left of Murray.

 

After the Friars cleared their zone within moments of Chavez’s near-miss, they proceeded to run up the shooting gallery, 14-5, between the 20^th and 71^st minutes of action. And the Cardinals all but invited their hosts to put their brittle lead on the edge in the way of three unanswered yellow cards.

 

But Boudreaux was only required to touch three Providence shots, all of them in the first half, before his guards filtered all six of the Friars’ purposeful boots in the latter 45 minutes.

 

In the 67^th minute, Murray lashed out to snuff Chase Kreger’s long-ranged bid that ended a 49 minute, 41 second fast from SOGs for the Cards. Once thawed out on that front, Louisville cracked down, authorizing three more far-flung bids from the Friars and absolute zilch after the 69^th minute elapsed.

 

In that climactic stretch, Louisville discharged five unanswered shots, earned five corner kicks, and induced PC to pick up two yellow cards of its own.

 

Maduro was flagged for the first of those cards in the 77^th minute when he characteristically impugned a whistle that had beat Chris Stoker’s net-bound scorcher, zapping the would-be equalizer.

Seeing how that particular play unfolded, the passion is not to be questioned, but the productivity is still conspicuous by its absence.

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press

Men's Soccer 1, Georgetown 0

Scarcely a minute remained in a mutually flustering showdown when the visiting Georgetown Hoyas, down 1-0 on the strength of Michael Pereira’s goal in the 82^nd minute, were awarded just their second corner kick of the game.

 

That stab was awarded when another attempt was foiled by none other than their noted Friar nemesis, starting forward Timothy Ritter, slid through the goal box bog with his left leg up to tilt it out of harm’s way.

 

In turn, the Hoyas scraped out their fifth registered shot attempt of the day at the perfect point to deflate the edgy Glay Field mass and force overtime concomitant with reversed momentum. But within precious seconds, the play was turned over and Ritter was hustling the ball into Georgetown territory virtually unchallenged. He would be stripped before he could discharge a shot, but had incinerated enough of the clock and stamp PC’s 1-0 victory in the first of 11 Big East games for both parties.

 

The Friars’ dramatic, triumphant nipping process of a statistically textbook defense involved holding back any shot attempts whatsoever for the first 17 minutes of action, running away with the lead in that category (14-5 at day’s end) to no immediate benefit, and finally breaking the board at 81:40 of regulation time.

 

Georgetown, which had run up its first five adversaries by an aggregate 13-0, chipped the game’s first SOG in the 15^th minute via Seth C’deBaca’s spiraling floater from the mid-to-left alley. After wide-leaning header from Jose Colchao three minutes later, though, the Hoyas let up to authorize eight unanswered kicks from the Friars.

 

The tempest commenced not long after reserve middie Alex Redding stepped in at the 17:11 mark, filling in Nick Cianci’s left side post. Between the 23^rd and 45^th minute, Redding accounted for four out of six PC shots and was the not-so-delectable centerpiece in a succession of offside calls, untamed kicks at Hoya goalkeeper Mark Wilber, and foiled swarms in the Georgetown goal box.

 

Only Ryan Maduro served up anything that Wilber could turn into a credited save before the half. At 29:10, the fiery second-term senior leveled a straightaway cannon from the brim of the goal box, only to see it lick Wilber’s fingertips and float safely over the crossbar.

 

Ritter –who tied Redding with four tangible attempts on the day- tipped Providence ahead in the SOG gallery at 62:48, at which point the Friars led 9-3 in terms of shots altogether. Still not fractured, Georgetown pulled even with precisely twenty minutes to spare when Peter Grasso forwarded the ball to an unguarded Colchao along the right post. Colchao crouched to discharge a low header, but keeper Tim Murray (two saves, second shutout of the season) was raring to swat and smother it, effectively ending the Hoyas’ sparsely distributed threats until their last ditch.

 

PC only garnered one more SOG themselves when exactly 8:20 remained, and moments after a quartet of defending Hoyas had nimbly deflected Maduro’s free kick out of bounds. Immediately awarded another whirl, the Friars’ forked at it twenty yards out from the cage before Pereira’s fairly sloppy boot pinballed off the congesting Georgetown backliners and skipped home to the right of Wilber.

 

That deciding kick was 14 tries in the making, but the home sect of the Glay grandstands –whose excitement had been stifled by endless brushes between the ball and the backstop mesh, not the cage mesh- tellingly erupted over it. And they doubled the celebratory decibels after Murray’s guards, who earned a startling rant from their stopper during a Georgetown threat around the 60^th minute, snuffed the visitors’ last equalizing endeavor.

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press

Women's Soccer 3, Holy Cross 0: Friars Corner Crusaders

Is this so far fruitful, resolute-looking incarnation of the Friars here to say? At this point, the mere unrelenting existence of that question is a plus.

 

Pleasurably speculative question marks, petite plus signs, and an overall spectrum of favorable data was a tad emboldened yesterday as PC stapled the Holy Cross Crusaders, 3-0, at Glay Field, thereby enhancing their record on the season to 3-0 for the first time since 2001.

 

Beneath that margin of victory –trivially the best this program has tasted in a single game since another generation ousted Marist, 3-0, in September of 2002- was the imbalance in offensive tokens each team earned. Namely, the Friars sculpted the better part of their lead on two corner kick conversions in a first half that saw them run up nine CKs while authorizing none of the sort for the Crusaders. At day’s end, the Friars flaunted a 10-1 edge in the corners and a 16-9 differential in the shooting gallery.

 

Holy Cross keeper Jessica Stone dealt with seven shots on net in that decisive opening half alone and ultimately ran up a 7-for-10 save count in her third consecutive loss. Conversely, the single most taxing play on Jill Schott’s (3 saves) agenda was when she had to leap low to her right to thwart Paige Harrison’s penalty kick at the 43:38 mark.

 

Schott’s teammates –who around the midway point of the first half collaborated for three blocks within 11 seconds- would filter six of the Crusaders’ nine registered shots on the day, and by the time Harrison spilled her free stab, the Friars were already up 2-0.

 

For the better part of the opening half, PC’s circumvention of the Crusaders’ brimming five-body defensive wall earned it a consistent buffet of corner kicks –a majority of them taken by starting backliner Christie Gent, one of two Friars (opposite fellow defender Megan Mancarella) to play the full length of the excruciatingly sun-baked (86 degrees) game- though the first five couldn’t hatch the key goose egg.

 

Finally, at 22:35, an own goal thawed out that nuisance. And roughly nineteen minutes later, Laura DiClemente leveled the ball out from the right corner and watched as it briefly hung suspended in a dense goal-box soup of black and white uniforms. But ultimately, rookie middie Courtney Collins clamped it down and raked her first collegiate goal within the left post.

 

PC’s precision and intensity lessened a touch in the second half (3 SOG on 6 overall attempts), though they did stash away a helpful third goal within the third minute of the frame. DiClemente, suffocated by Crusader defender Michaela Morgan and on the brink of leaning out of bounds, handed things over to Caitlin Hostetler in the right lane. Hostetler offered a lateral feed to Kate DelCampio, who in turn left a rebound for Kelley Pettersen to swoop at from the left side and thrust into the top mesh of the cage.

 

Schott, who took cautious initiative on a handful of second half Holy Cross stabs, only needed to crouch at and swallow Katherine Donnelly’s blistering low riding boot at precisely 62:00. And by the 83^rd minute, she had given way to freshman Caitlin Walker, who received little more than a bite-sized, soak-in-the-atmosphere collegiate debut, while the Friars heaved three more bids at the shortcoming Stone.

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press