Forty-four combined shots were fired towards goal, but none found the back of the net, as the Massachusetts men’s soccer team salvaged a point in the standings and drew a scoreless tie with St. Bonaventure in its regular season road finale on Sunday afternoon.
The result puts the Minutemen (4-10-2, 2-2-2 Atlantic 10) at 10th place in the conference standings and two points out of sixth place – which is the cut to make the postseason tournament next month.
UMass won the edge in shots taken, with a 23-to-21 advantage, but was unable to score the deciding goal throughout regulation and in the two overtime periods.
Josh Schwartz led the Minutemen in shots with five, although none went on frame, while Brett Canepa had four shots with two on goal. And in his ongoing process to ease back into game shape, senior Bryant Craft had three shots, with one testing Bonnies’ goalkeeper Mitchell Mack. It was the captain’s third consecutive appearance on the field since returning from an injury last weekend.
Perhaps the best chance for UMass to come up with the winning goal came at the end of both extra periods. With 22 seconds remaining in the first overtime, Robert Sena found some space, but misfired on a shot that ended up wide right.
And in the final minute of the second overtime period, the Minutemen provided plenty of chaos in the Bonnies’ 18-yard box, putting three shots towards goal, but were left without the winning tally. Altogether, UMass held a seven-to-five shot advantage throughout both overtime sessions.
Goalkeeper Shane Curran-Hays posted six saves in the contest en route to his fourth shutout of the season, which have all come within the last five games.
Bidding their farewell to the road for this season, the Minutemen will now return to Amherst to finish off their remaining schedule with a three-game home stand. They will welcome George Washington and Richmond this weekend for a pair of games before hosting Rhode Island in the season finale on Nov. 5.
Dukes rout UM
The Minutemen were unable to extend their three-game unbeaten streak on Friday night, as a Joshua Patterson second-half hat trick lifted Duquesne to a blowout 4-0 victory.
The scoring got started 23 minutes, 27 seconds into the match, when the Dukes’ Filip Velasevic sent a direct free kick into the Minutemen’s 18-yard box. Simon Gomez was on the receiving end of it, and headed it past Curran-Hays and into the netting to put DU up 1-0.
The Dukes took that lead into the halftime break, but it wouldn’t stay that way for long, as Patterson got started on his career day just a little over two minutes into the second half.
At the 47:52 mark, Gomez found Patterson, who notched his first of the day to put the Minutemen into a two-goal deficit.
And less than a minute later, the Dukes stormed backed through the UMass defensive zone, as Carter Poe and Nathan McCann organized an offensive rush that resulted with Patterson finding the back of the net for his second goal of the night, which gave DU a 3-0 cushion.
Patterson didn’t stop there, as he completed his hat trick in the 76th minute off a pass from Alvaro Cabral, tallying his fifth goal of the year and finishing the 4-0 rout of the Minutemen.
The UMass offense was seemingly anemic all night long, and failed to test Dukes goalkeeper Colin Thorp, who made three saves in his shutout effort.
Altogether, the Minutemen fired 14 shots, with only three of them landing on goal, while DU recorded 17 shots of its own, with nine finding the target.
Stephen Hewitt can be reached at [email protected].
