The road woes for the Dartmouth men's soccer team continued Wednesday afternoon as regional rival Vermont managed to take down the Big Green, 2-1, in Burlington, Vt.
"It just was not a good performance by us," co-captain Craig Henderson '09 said. "We are really disappointed."
The loss appeared to be especially tough for the Big Green (5-3-1, 0-0-1 Ivy) as it aroused bad memories of last year's season-ending penalty-kick defeat at the hands of Catamounts (5-2-4, 1-0-0 America East) in the first round of the NCAA tournament. But Henderson stressed that with so many freshman playing a prominent role on this year's squad, the team really did not put any extra pressure on itself.
"It was definitely in the back of our minds," Henderson said. "But we did not want to put our focus on that."
The Catamounts jumped in front early and did their best to control play for the rest of the match. In just the sixth minute, Vermont's Jordan White put a corner kick into the box, and Ryan White headed it towards the middle before Vermont's Connor Tobin won a scramble to the ball in front of the goal to put Vermont up 1-0.
The rest of the half remained balanced, with Vermont slightly out-shooting the Big Green, 5-4.
In the second half, the Catamounts extended their lead. In the 57th minute, Vermont forward Lee Stephane Kouadio drilled a shot from point-blank range.
Dartmouth goalkeeper Sean Milligan '09 was able to stop the initial shot, but Vermont's Patrick Alonis corralled the rebound and tapped in what would be the eventual game-winner.
Despite the 2-0 deficit, the Big Green would not go down without a fight, maintaining pressure and finally getting on the board with three minutes to go.
Dartmouth fullback Bryan Guidicelli '11 sent a ball up to rookie forward Lucky Mkosana '12, the team's leading scorer. Mkosana made a run and fired a low shot past Vermont goalkeeper Roger Scully.
The goal turned out to be too little too late. While the Big Green pushed forward in the remaining three minutes, they were unable to put home an equalizer.
Vermont held a slight shot advantage on the day, 13-11, while Milligan and Scully each had four saves in net.
Dartmouth has now not won a game away from Hanover since they dismantled nationally ranked Indiana University, 4-0, in its second game of the Mike Berticelli Memorial Tournament on Sept. 7. Henderson could not put a finger on what exactly the team needs to work on, noting simply that whatever the problem is, it is time to overcome it.
"It was an away game, mid-week, non-conference, during the day and all that, but those aren't real excuses," Henderson said. "We didn't come out and perform to the standard that we know we can, and it turns out we lost, and quite badly."
Luckily, the Big Green returns to Hanover this Saturday to face Yale. Henderson does not think that the mental toughness the Big Green has failed to demonstrate against some of their less distinguished foes will be an issue this weekend.
Dartmouth acknowledges that Yale will be a physical team and is fired up to improve their conference record.
The two teams will square off at 4:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon at Burnham Field.
