Youth Leads the Way for the Panthers

The men’s team took on Rhode Island College, in Rhode Island, this past Monday. Coming into the game 2-4-2, after losing two straight, including heartbreaking loss on homecoming weekend. The team need something to get back on the right track. This was the game to do it with the score ending 1-0 in favor of Plymouth. The men got the win to break the three-game winless streak, plus they got a win over a fellow Little East Conference team. This win pushed the teams record to a 3-4-2 and a 1-2-1 LEC record. The win was also Plymouth’s first against Rhode Island since the 2012 season. 

The game was a sloppy one as the field was drenched in rain so both teams had a hard time finding their footing. With the game underway, Plymouth missed a golden opportunity to take the lead in the 11^thminute when sophomore Erik Armskog (Gothenburg, Sweden) unfortunately the target sent the shot wide. The excitement didn’t end there as the Anchormen had two scoring opportunities within two minutes of each other, the first was a cross that ended up being broken up by sophomore Linus Lindeberg (Stockholm, Sweden). The second opportunity came from a cross into the box, but the RIC attacker’s shot went over the net. Lindeberg ended the half with four saves and the Panthers’ offense ended the half with only two shots.

When the second half started, it appeared Plymouth would have another half of playing defensive under RIC’s intense offense. But 12 minutes into the half, freshman Alyosha Westbrook (Los Angeles, California) found Melker Blomberg (Stockholm, Sweden) off a beautiful cross which was finished off by an equally mesmerizing header. From there, Plymouth’s defense let up no easy looks to goal and the offense continued to press their new-found advantage. Around the 70^thminute, Armskog set up a pass from the free kick to Westbrook who just sent the header over the bar. The just moments later senior Juan Rivera (Mt. Kisco, N.Y.) had a pass go behind him in the opponent’s box missing an opportunity to push the game to 2-0. The game would end rather heated a Rhode Island defender would be sent off with a red card in the 90^thminute.

The game would end there, 1-0, with Lindeberg would end the game with seven saves and his second clean sheet of the year. Alyosha would tally his second assist of the season as he tries to make an impression his freshman season. Melker would notch his first goal of the season. Linus was available to answer some questions. He had this to say on the team’s overall performance, “I think our overall performance have been good in most games, unfortunately we haven't got the results we have wanted in the conference games until the game we had Monday.” When asked on what his highlight of the last game was Linus said, “The highlight was that we got the first conference win of the season and that we kept a clean sheet.” His finally thought heading into the next game was “It is always an exciting game when we are playing Keene. I'm feeling positive and hopefully we'll get a good result.” The team will be heading to bitter LEC rival Keene State this Saturday, the game starts at 3:00 p.m.