The Long-Awaited Season Opener

September 10, 2008

Wednesday was the day we were all waiting for, although we had to wait an extra 21 hours for it to come: our first regular season game of 2008. We were supposed to play Tuesday night but the game was rained out and rescheduled for Wednesday. Our opponents were Mt. St. Mary’s, a team that we’ve beaten every year I’ve been at Vassar, but who gave us a very tough game last fall.

Mt. St. Mary’s is a pretty fun place to play, it’s a small but scenic campus, and the crowd of students is always few in number but pretty lively. The field wasn’t perfect, and the long grass gave us some trouble early on. The last-minute cancellation had forced us to practice on the turf Tuesday night in pouring rain, which meant that balls that were skipping right off the field the night before were barely reaching their intended targets on Wednesday. There were a few tense moments in the first half when our defenders gave away passes in the tall grass, but overall we were solid in the back. Outside of this, we had very little trouble in the first half, though we should have scored more than we did. A Jon Hootnick finish with 10 minutes to go was all we were able to manage, and the 1-0 lead probably didn’t reflect how much we had controlled the half.

The second half was a different story however. We were unable to get another goal to put the game away, and for some reason we began to fall apart late. Mt. St. Mary’s had a goal disallowed for offsides with about 15 minutes to go, though we also had more than a few chances killed by offsides calls. Then in a moment that nearly gave everyone on the bench a heart attack, a Mt. St. Mary shot appeared to be going in to an empty net with 48 seconds left to play before Chris Nieminski sprinted back to the line and was able to head the ball away, saving us from an overtime period we never thought would be necessary.

Overall, there are positives and negatives to take from our first game. We got away with a win, which is the most important thing. We also looked very composed in the first half, and there were several individual players who really stood out with good performances. On the other hand, we need to do a better job of finishing, and we need to avoid some of the mistakes we made later on in the game. We’ll have a better idea of where we are as a team when we take on Alfred on Saturday, another team that we beat last season by just one goal.