The Plymouth State’s Men’s soccer team’s winning streak was put to an end last Saturday when they lost their first Little East Conference match-up of the season to the Keene State Owls 2-0, bringing their record to 4-1.
Keene State, which had lost its past two regular season games to PSU, brought their record up to 3-3 with this victory. Coach of the PSU Men’s soccer team Robert Wright said, “The guys were all very disappointed about Saturday but we are keeping it in perspective. We didn’t play well but neither did they.” PSU and KSC both had chances to get on the board, but in the end went goalless in the first half. PSU ended the half with four shots on goal, while the Owls had ten. PSU first-year goalie Bjorn Ohlsson had another impressive game with three saves, one of the more impressive saves coming late in the first half when he went airborne to knock down a shot from KSC first-year Bobby Saraf. Senior Semir Mehmedovic gave PSU the best shot of putting some points up on the board with a mid-range shot that just missed the net. In the forty-seventh minute of the match there was an altercation in front of the Owl’s net. PSU’s top scorer, Mehmedovic and the Owl’s top goalie, Peter Kersker, who had one save were both ejected from the game after being issued red cards. PSU ended the game with seventeen fouls, while Keene almost matched them with a total of fifteen. “It was a very poor game of college soccer,” comments Coach Wright, “and if it had stayed 11 vs. 11 I think we could have played till midnight and neither team would have scored.”Keene State’s Tom Conran took over as goalie for the final forty-two minutes of the game, made two saves and successfully shut out PSU. In the second half, senior Mike Vitone and first-year Shawn Shand both scored unassisted goals bringing the score to 2-0 and giving Keene State the victory. In the fifty-second minute Vitone, this game being his second start of the season, floated a shot over the head of Ohlsson after the ball came to him in a corner kick. Then, Shand gave Keene some insurance when he beat a PSU defender and ticketed the ball into the corner, this goal makes it his third of the season. Shand did have one more chance to give the Owls even more of a lead, but it was tipped over the net by PSU’s Ohlsson. PSU ended the game with the only advantage in corner kicks, being 4-3 The next game is set to play on Saturday, September 26 against Southern Maine University. Coach Wright says, “The game at USM will be tough. We split with them last year and of course beat them in the tournament when they were the No. 1 seed, so I’m sure the game will be intense.”After that, they began a series of three road games until the return home for another LEC matchup against Western Connecticut State University on Saturday, October 3, at 1:00 p.m.