The men's soccer team lost their bid to win their first game of the year when two late Connecticut goals lifted the Huskies to a 4-2 victory over the Big Green at Storrs, CT.The loss dropped the Big Green to 0-6 on the young season as they enter Ivy League play this weekend at Yale.
With the scored knotted 2-2 in the 84th minute of the contest, Connecticut's Dan Sapienza broke the tie with his second goal of the half when he received a pass as he broke free across the goal box and sent a shot towards the far post, beating Big Green goalkeeper Matt Nyman '99. The Huskies' Bobby Rhine added a late goal after that to extend the Husky lead to two goals and send the Big Green home with another tightly contested loss.
Connecticut scored all four goals in the second half after being shut out by the Big Green defense in the first half. Trailing 1-0 18 minutes into the second half, the Huskies' Sapienza and Kevin Kalishscored two quick goals in the span of six minutes to give the Huskies their first lead of the contest.
The Huskies lost their slim advantage when the Big Green's Bobby Meyer '99 scored his first collegiate goal ever to tie the score. Meyer's goal completed a picture-perfect passing play that started with a pass form Mehtembe Ndlovu '97 toforward Hunter Paschall '96. Paschall then dumped the ball to John Bosacco '96 who set up Meyer for the goal.
Meyer was also involved on the Big Green's first half goal. Meyer passed the ball to Andy Warner '99 who's crossing pass to Zach Somol '98 gave him an easy five foot tap-in for his first goal of the season. The two goals were all the Big Green could muster on a day when UConn outshot the Big Green, 12-5.
"We played quite well for most of the game, but we just couldn't hold our defense and we had a lapse for about 20 minutes in the second half," forward Gareth Jones '99 said. "It was like the last four games, a typical Dartmouth collapse at the end of a game."
"It's getting frustrating because it seems like we always have the lead," Meyer said. "We'll get it fixed though."
The team will try to get on track when they travel to Yale this weekend to open their Ivy League schedule.
