The second leg of the No. 25 men’s soccer team’s four-game series against New York state regional rivals takes place tomorrow at 1 p.m., on Berman Field when the Red (6-4-3 overall, 0-3-3 Ivy) takes on the Columbia Lions (6-5-3, 3-2-1).
Cornell found victory in last Wednesday’s 2-1 thriller in double overtime at Syracuse. Senior forward Ted Papadopoulos opened the scoring during the 63rd minute. Then freshman back Scott Palguta scored the game winner in the second extra session on an assist from sophomore midfielder Ian Pilarski and simultaneously ended the Orangemen’s season. With the win, the Red kept its slim chance for gaining an NCAA postseason tournament bid alive and ran its unbeaten streak to three games.
Always looking to improve, head coach Bryan Scales said, “We need to make sure to be better on the ball and to play for the full 90 minutes. We played well for the first half.”
Columbia dropped its last game in overtime, 2-1, to Hartwick. Freshman forward Thorstein Gesstsson scored the lone Lion goal. Senior goalie Mike Ewers made the same All-Ivy honor roll (for the week ending on Nov. 5) as did the Red’s junior team captain and back Liam Hoban.
Junior goalie Doug Allan, a frequent member of the player’s of the week squad, will counter Columbia’s attack.
“Doug Allan has been outstanding and made a couple of great saves against Syracuse,” said Scales.
Scales continued to dish out his season long praise to his back four defenders of Hoban, Palguta, senior Nick Haigh and sophomore Evan Wiener.
The Standings
The Red sits in a tie for last place with Yale, but with a win, can climb out of the cellar. On the other hand, the Lions sit in fourth place in the conference, and still have a very small chance to get into a tie for the regular season championship with a win in this regular season finale. They would need for the three front runners, Harvard, Princeton, and Brown, to lose in order to gain a tie for first place.
Scales concluded, “This is more of a regional game for us. We are not putting any additional pressure on ourselves just to get an Ivy-League win.”
Getting its first conference victory of the season would be a side note for the Red as it hopes to have a bigger goal to fulfill with the NCAA tournament.
In last year’s Nov. 11 meeting, the Red lost in New York City, N.Y., 2-1 to the Lions. Two years ago, Cornell defeated Columbia 2-0 on Berman Field on the strength of two Papadopoulos strikes.
Archived article by Donald Lee