It seemed as if Halloween arrived early this year for the men’s soccer team as things got a little scary over Columbus Day weekend.
The Stags dropped two games at home over the weekend. They lost 1-0 to Rider and 4-0 to first place MAAC team, Loyola.
In Friday’s game against Rider, the Bronc’s scored eight minutes into the second half on a cross that landed behind the Stag defense, notching their first win of the season with the shutout.
The Stags could not retaliate, but had some strong opportunities. An opportunity off a corner and later a shot by Steve Desmond ’08 were the closest chances the Stags had to score. Fairfield outshot Rider 13-5, but couldn’t get one goal across.
Fairfield also overwhelmingly edged Rider in corners, 12-3, which led to scoring opportunities.
This was the second time all year that Fairfield was shut out.
The Stags looked to rebound against top conference foe Loyola two days later.
The Greyhounds scored early in the game after a rebound off a corner kick gave Loyola a 1-0 lead.
While the Stags fought to get back into the game, outshooting their opponents 11-7, Loyola capitalized with three more goals in the second half, putting the game out of reach.
Fairfield and Loyola have been the top two teams in the MAAC for the past three years, creating great regular season matchups.
Coming into the weekend, Fairfield was ranked sixth in the NCAA New England Regional rankings.
“In both games we controlled possession and dictated the game however, we lacked that killer instinct at both ends of the field and consequently lost twice,” said Carl Rees, the team’s head coach.
The team will attempt to rebound from the losses this weekend with games in Buffalo at Niagara and Canisius.
“I am confident we will rebound.” said Rees. “This is a very determined group of lads and we wll be trying our best to bring home two wins this weekend.”
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