Pitt falls one goal short

Head coach Joe Luxbacher knew his team could have beat defending Big East champion… Head coach Joe Luxbacher knew his team could have beat defending Big East champion Connecticut. Problem was, the Huskies did something simple to put the Pitt men’s soccer team away.

“We could have won the game, we had opportunities,” Luxbacher said. “They had a couple chances and they scored them — that was the difference.”

The Panthers missed several key scoring chances in their 4-3 loss to the Huskies at Founders Field on Saturday. The first came in the seventh minute of play when Tyler Bastianelli blasted a shot at the Connecticut goal. The ball barely missed and pounded the crossbar, ricocheting back to Keeyan Young, who sailed the rebound shot wide left.

Young and Bastianelli hooked up again 20 minutes later when the latter sliced through the UConn defense on the left side and found a wide-open Young five yards in front of the goal.

But Young missed high from the close distance, and the groans from the fans could be heard at least a mile away.

“We played pretty well in the first half,” Luxbacher said. “We hit the crossbar then missed one right in front. The shots at the half were even.”

The Panthers (4-9-2 overall, 3-4-1 Big East) may have played well, but the Huskies played even better en route to a 2-0 lead at halftime. The first UConn goal came in the 28th minute when Chukwudi Chijindu headed teammate Ryan Cordeiro’s pass past Andy “Tex” Jorgensen to give the Huskies the early lead.

Near the end of the half, Connecticut (9-4-2, 7-1-1 Big East) scored again when Akeem Priestley found the back of the net after Jorgensen had been tangled up on the previous shot.

The Panthers were down at halftime, but they weren’t out. Luxbacher’s squad came out firing in the second half and eventually tied the game in the waning minutes.

The first goal to spark the comeback came six minutes in from Matt Langton. The junior fielded a rebounding shot from Young and pounded it past Connecticut goalkeeper Matt Sangeloty.

The Huskies responded quickly, though, when Cordeiro got a rebound this time from teammate O’Brian White to extend their lead to two once again.

But Pitt dug itself out of the hole starting in the 70th minute with an Eric Jaeger goal to cut the lead to 3-2.

The Panthers stayed down one goal until less than five minutes remained in the game. Reeling from a close Bastianelli miss minutes earlier, the Panthers pushed hard on offense and were awarded a corner kick.

Langton hooked the ball into the box and captain Brendon Smith headed it home to tie the game at three.

It looked like overtime until the Panthers became victims of their own aggressiveness. Pitt had everybody up on offense when UConn captain Karl Schilling broke away from the Pitt defense and approached Jorgensen, one on one.

Schilling would have to wait to fire the shot, however, because Matt Firster took him down in the open field, giving Schilling a penalty kick. Jorgensen stopped the initial shot, but was beaten by Cordeiro’s rebound shot to put UConn up again.

“We got caught over-attacking, but you can’t blame your guys. We were trying to get the winning goal,” Luxbacher said.

The Panthers tried to tie the game with a few late chances, and Luxbacher thought they could have, had it not been for a tough break on Smith.

“The officiating was poor,” Luxbacher said. “[The officials] let the game get away. They called a penalty kick on us and then this last call out here when they leveled Brendon Smith in the box — that’s the worst foul.

“Our guys battled — tough loss.”

Despite out-shooting the Huskies 14-10, the Panthers suffered their seventh one-goal loss of the season.

With only one home game left, the Panthers have to face two Big East opponents on the road — West Virginia and Seton Hall after playing Georgetown at home.