FSU Gets Late Tally to Draw with McDaniel

Junior, Pablo Torrano

On Wednesday night the McDaniel College men's soccer team came close to handing the Bobcats their first loss of the season. A late goal by Pablo Torrano helped FSU remain unbeaten when he tied the match 1-1 in the 85^th minute.

We tied McDaniel last year and knew they would put up a fight again this year as they have been playing a very competitive schedule. Dealing with some injuries and a suspension we were hoping we would still have enough offensive fire power to put McDaniel away. Starting center back Chris Jones was out due to a red card suspension and our other starting center back Bernard Fatusin tried to return after being out for two weeks, but only played 5 minutes before being pulled for his recurring injury. Reserve center back Brandon Zurita has filled in nicely, but was forced out of the game with an ankle injury early in the second half.

With the backline being pieced together it was probably inevitable that we would make a mistake and when we did McDaniel would capitalize. After failing to clear a ball out of the box due to a miss kick a McDaniel player beat an FSU player to the far post and touched the ball past the keeper for a 1-0 lead. It was McDaniel's only shot of the half, but they made it count.

We played fairly well with the revamped line-up, but could not find the tying goal. Finally with 5 minutes remaining Ryan Russell would serve a nice ball from the left flank into the box and Pablo Torrano would go up and beat two McDaniel players to the ball to head in the tying goal. I thought after we tied the game that we would have enough momentum to get the winner, but we fell just short. We limited McDaniel to just 3 shots on goal, but we were unable to find that second goal and had to settle for the tie.

We are on the road this weekend for an important CAC match against St. Mary's College. We are hopeful to get some of the players back healthy and the return of Chris Jones should fortify the backline.