Men’s soccer suffers early playoff defeat

This past Saturday, the Hopkins men’s soccer team dropped a close 2-1 game to visiting Washington College Shoremen to close out regular season play. The loss dropped the Blue Jays to a 9-6-2 season with a Centennial Conference record of 3-5-1. Despite the losing record in conference play, Ursinus’s loss to Muhlenberg and a Haverford-Swarthmore tie propelled the Jays into the Centennial Conference Tournament as the fifth seed. Hopkins jumped to an early lead by scoring at the 2:40 mark in the first half when freshman forward Michael Swiercz converted on a chip from junior Ian Heinrich, placing a header into the bottom right corner for his first career goal. The Jays continued to put on the pressure, coming close to taking a two-goal lead when Heinrich hit the post after beating Washington College goalie Lin Robinson. The second half was a completely different story. In the 63rd minute, the Shoremen drew a penalty kick after a scrap in the one-yard penalty box. Drew Thompson converted on the kick leveling the game 1-1 with just over 25 minutes remaining. In the 83rd minute, the Shoremen jumped to a 2-1 lead after Joseph Fili sneaked past two Hopkins defenders and drove a shot into the bottom right corner past Hopkins senior goaltender Nick Cerrone, leaving the Jays on the wrong side of a 2-1 loss. Despite the late letdown, Swiercz attributed the hot start for the Jays to the fact that the game had playoff implications. “We started off with a lot of energy, which led to the early goal,” Swiercz said. However, with Washington College coming into the game at a lowly 6-9-1 record, Swiercz believed that the team became too complacent. “We kind of relaxed and didn’t keep the pressure on to see out the result,” he said. “We underestimated their ability to make a strong comeback.” Junior defender Kenny DeStefano also provided input on the loss, stating that the Shoremen capitalized more on their opportunities. “Soccer is a crazy sport in which most games are decided by just one or two goals,” DeStefano said. “So many things factor in to whether you can produce a goal at any one point, meaning you can be controlling the play but still fall short of achieving a result. It was an even match on both sides; they were just able to capitalize on their chances late in the game.” Swiercz expressed optimism moving forward into the CC playoffs. “The majority of our conference losses this season have been by one goal, so all of our games have been close,” Swiercz said. “We lost two games this season with less than a minute remaining. Obviously we can compete with all of the teams in the conference, so leading into the tournament we just need to regain our confidence.” DeStefano stated that the Blue Jays need to focus on their game plan and take everything one step at a time. “We need to be focusing on playing our style of play,” he said. “We have challenged the best teams in the country. It’s going to be a tough tournament, but with soccer especially the results could go either way.” With DeStefano’s sentiment in mind, the Blue Jays traveled to Haverford, Pa. to compete against the Haverford College Fords in the first round of the Centennial Conference playoffs. To the dismay of the Jays, the Fords came out victorious, scoring the only goal of the match in the 75th minute to defeat Hopkins by a final score of 1-0. Sophomore goaltender Matt Paris was excellent in goal for the Blue Jays by notching five saves on the day, but suffered his third loss of the season. The loss sends the Jays home for the season, finishing with a final record of 9-7-2 while Haverford advances to take on Franklin & Marshall College. Despite the difficult loss, the Jays have made the Centennial Conference playoffs for 14 straight years since the beginning of the tournament back in 2001. That being said, the taste of another one-goal defeat puts a damper on what has been a back-and-forth season for the Blue Jays. Sophomore Matt Williams nearly had the equalizer in the 87th minute but was thwarted by a beautiful stop from the Fords’ goaltender Sam Miller. At the end of the game the Fords outshot the Jays 9-6 and maintained possession of the ball for the majority of the game. The Blue Jays will head into the offseason looking to improve on another successful winning season.