Men’s soccer revives offense but still loses 3-2

After being shut out in the Mayors Cup last weekend, the Pitt men’s soccer team broke out of… After being shut out in the Mayors Cup last weekend, the Pitt men’s soccer team broke out of its offensive woes Wednesday night against Robert Morris, but their efforts were not enough to come away with a victory – the Panthers fell 3-2.

The Colonials (2-2-1) applied early pressure on the Panthers, but Pitt (1-3 Overall, 1-0 Big East) moved the ball downfield to score the game’s first goal.

The goal was a result of a short kick by Colonials’ goalkeeper Tomer Chencinski. Panthers’ midfielder Jeffrey Tidd controlled the short kick and lofted it to Marco Carrizales, who was cutting between two Colonials’ defenders. Carrizales settled the ball and quickly fired it past the diving Colonials’ goalkeeper at the 12-minute mark.

With a few minutes remaining in the first half, the Colonials took advantage of a Panthers turnover and broke downfield on an odd-man rush. Colonials’ forward Said Ali carried the ball down to the right of Panthers’ goalkeeper Justin Lowery.

He passed it across the goalie box to a wide-open David Currie, who booted the ball into the back of the net.

The second half did not bring an end to the Colonials’ offensive success. Joe Di Buono caught Lowery out of position and scored the go-ahead goal into a wide-open net at the 53-minute mark. The open-net goal was set up by a rebound off of a sliding Panthers’ defender.

A few minutes later, Ali ran with a breakaway, and Lowery came out of the goal to challenge him. Lowery slid past Ali, missing the ball, and Ali scored what would prove to be the game-winning goal.

The Panthers mounted an offensive attack in the final 10 minutes of the game. Clay Haflich scored by redirecting a corner kick with his head into the back of the net.

Haflich’s goal sparked a multitude of offensive chances for the Panthers, including one of his own shots that went off the crossbar and over the net. Haflich came close to scoring again when he redirected another kick with his head, only to watch the opposing goalkeeper dive and deflect the ball out of bounds.

“We did everything we could to come back,” Haflich said. “We had chances and just gave up silly goals.”

In an attempt to create a stronger offense, Coach Joe Luxbacher had the Panthers play in a different offensive system than the one they used for the first three games of the season, which produced only one goal prior to this game.

“We did play better offensively,” Luxbacher said. “But you cannot give up three goals and expect to win.”

The new offensive scheme enabled a few more players to move into the offensive zone and allowed Pitt to place more pressure on the Colonials’ defense.

The Panthers next game takes place at Founders Field on Sept. 13 at 1 p.m. in a Big East showdown against Rutgers.