The 2008 season for the men’s soccer team ended with fanfare on Saturday. Unfortunately for Cornell, the celebration was honoring its opponent Columbia, as the host Lions shut out the Red, 2-0, on the Lions’ Senior Day.

Cornell (1-15, 0-7 Ivy) finished the season with the dubious distinction of a winless record in conference play. Columbia (4-12-1, 2-5) limited the Red’s offense to just two shots before halftime, and seven total.

“We had a pretty rough season, so we wanted to win our last game,” said sophomore Cornell midfielder Scott Caldwell. “But it didn’t happen.”

The 2008 campaign will come to an end this weekend for the men’s soccer team, as the Red travel to New York City to square off against the Columbia Lions tomorrow.

Static stretching: Sophomore forward Matt Bouraee (12) fights for the ball during Cornell’s 3-0 loss to Princeton Nov. 1.

Both of these teams have struggled throughout much of the year and are currently last and second-to-last respectively in the Ivy League standings.

The Red (1-14, 0-6 Ivy) and the Lions (3-12-1, 1-5) are both coming off of resounding defeats last weekend — Columbia was routed by Harvard, 6-1, and Cornell fell to Dartmouth, 5-2.

The Red players are trying not to dwell on the past, however.

The men’s soccer team has just one game remaining in its season, and that means that the seniors on the squad have just one game left in their respective NCAA careers.

This year’s team is quite unique in that there are 11 seniors, one of whom, Miyad Movassaghi, will be returning for a fifth year of eligibility. Junior Matt Bouraee explained that due to the big group of seniors, the character of this year’s team is defined by their leadership and personalities.

Maybe it was the emotion of Senior Night — a Berman Field send-off for the 10 seniors of the men’s soccer team — or maybe it was the adrenaline the athletes got from facing a top team like Dartmouth. Whatever the reason, the Red upped the intensity in its last home game of the season, intensity not reflected in the loss’s final score of 5-2.

“Dartmouth is a very good team and they deserved to win,” said head coach Bryan Scales, “but I also give our guys credit for showing up tonight and competing like crazy. They got it back to 3-2, [we were] starting to get some bodies forward to try to equalize and ended up giving up the fourth goal.”

“I can’t be disappointed with the effort,” Scales added. “The guys put everything they could into that game.”

The men’s soccer team will make its last 2008 appearance on Berman Field tomorrow, as Cornell (1-13, 0-5 Ivy) continues to search for its first Ivy League win of the year with a matchup against Dartmouth (8-5-1, 3-1-1). Many of the Red players — the 10 seniors graduating this year — will be playing in their last-ever collegiate game on Berman Field.

Tomorrow’s game is designated as Senior Day, honoring seniors Luca Cerretani, Steve Lesser, Marcelo Guindon, Jarid Siegel, Ed Chang, Dan McKallagat, David Browning, Dana Flanders, Joe Yonga and Kevin Vieira.

In this season that has been mostly filled with disappointment, head coach Bryan Scales hopes that his team can draw some motivation from the inevitably emotional Senior Day.

Shouts of joy rang out three times at Berman Field on Saturday. Unfortunately for the men’s soccer team, hosting Princeton in an afternoon matchup, it was the visiting players who ran to congratulate each other after each of their goals, as Princeton defeated Cornell, 3-0, in the Red’s second-to-last home matchup of 2008.

Searching for its first win in the Ancient Eight, the Red (1-13, 0-5 Ivy) is still hunting after the Tigers (5-9-1, 2-2-1) snatched an early two-goal lead and added an insurance score in the second half to notch their second Ivy win. Princeton presented a different kind of opponent for Cornell — the Tigers’ team speed was too great an advantage for the Red to overcome.

After Tuesday’s scheduled game against Hartwick College was cancelled due to inclement weather, the men’s soccer team now has just three games remaining in its 2008 campaign, all three of which are Ivy League games. The Red (1-12, 0-4 Ivy) is the only team in the Ivy League without a conference win and will be looking for a change of fortune tomorrow, as Princeton (4-9-1, 1-2-1) comes to Berman Field for a 4:30 p.m. matchup.

Hi-diddly-ho: Senior defender Dana Flanders said that the team has been working hard, but just hasn’t gotten the results it wants.

The men’s soccer team may not even have time to unpack its bags after returning from Brown on Sunday because the squad will be on the road once again tonight, this time traveling to Oneonta, N.Y., to face off against Hartwick College (5-4-5, 1-1-1 MAC). The Red (1-12, 0-4 Ivy) has dropped its past seven contests, and will be the visiting team for the third consecutive game.

Having struggled through a frustrating 2008 season, the men’s soccer team was looking for some providence of its own as the team traveled to Providence, R.I., this weekend to face perennial Ivy contender Brown. Instead of guidance or a change of luck, the Red (1-12, 0-4 Ivy) encountered the Bears (9-4-1, 3-1) at full force in an arena where the Bears have been the most successful — the team is 5-1 at home this year. Brown eventually overpowered Cornell Saturday night, 2-0.

“[Brown is] athletic, of course, they always are,” said senior defender Kevin Vieira. “[On Saturday] they took more advantage of their opportunities. … We were really attacking, and we finally did put away one of our opportunities, but it was [called offsides].”

The men’s soccer team will continue its stretch of road games in Providence, R.I., this weekend, with hopes of wrestling away its first Ivy League win of the season against host Brown tomorrow.

The Red (1-11, 0-3 Ivy) is currently on a six-game losing skid in which the squad has dropped games to Ivy foes Penn, Harvard and Yale. Tomorrow, Cornell will be going up against Brown (8-4-1, 2-1), the defending Ivy League Champions after finishing 7-0-0 in 2007 conference play. This year’s edition of the Bears features several returning players from last year’s lineup, but it is also missing some key elements — particularly 2007 Ivy League Player of the Year Matt Britner.