Penn State Topped by Mountaineers, 2-1

posted October 23, 2014 in CommRadio, Sports by Jack Milewski

The losing streak now sits at three for the Penn State men’s soccer team. The Nittany Lions dropped their most recent contest, 2-1, to West Virginia on Wednesday night at a chilly Jeffery Field. Penn State, who was coming off back to back shutout losses to Maryland and Michigan State, were looking to not only snap a two game losing streak, but also a scoreless streak that spanned more than 190 minutes. Although they accomplished the latter, as Connor Maloney opened the game’s scoring early in the first half, two goals roughly eight minutes apart by Andy Bevin sunk the Lions once again.

“We’re frustrated, we should be better than this,” said head coach Bob Warming. “We know we are and I think we’ve just lost a little bit of our mojo and we have to get it back.”

Despite only producing one goal, the Nittany Lions did not lack for chances as they peppered the Mountaineers with 14 shots on the game, including three that hit the post in the first half. First it was Mikey Minutillo hitting the cross bar, and later Mark Wadid hit it as well. As time ran out in the first half Owen Griffith also clipped the near post on a header attempt.

“It’s always discouraging when you hit the post because you have an opportunity to get a goal, but the bottom line is we fell short today,” said forward Connor Maloney.

In the second half, after they scored their first goal, Penn State seemed to start trying to force passes through the defense and many of their attackers were trying to go in two-on-one or three-on-one as West Virginia easily took the ball off their feet in many occasions as the team seemed to lack cohesion.

“We were a great team there for quite a while, but there are a lot of factors influencing these losses,” said Warming.

On the other side of the coin, West Virginia, after being dominated for most of the first half, came out with a renewed vigor in the second half. The Mountaineers improved both defensively and offensively as was indicated by the two goals from the team’s leading scorer Bevin.

“Bob wanted to get forward faster and they used the wind to their advantage in the first half so we watched our lines more carefully in the second half,” said West Virginia head coach and Penn State alum Marlon LeBlanc. “Our group was very resilient tonight against a very good team.”

West Virginia switched their offensive scheme to a 4-3-3 allowing them to push more attackers forward. Soon after, Paul Ehrenworth lifted a through ball over Penn State defender Eli Dennis’ head and Bevin struck it with his right foot out of mid-air and into the bottom corner of the goal to knot the score at one. Just eight minutes after, Mountaineers forward Jad Arslan was taken down in the box awarding West Virginia and Bevin a penalty kick.

“Arslan did a good job to step in front of Mike [Robinson],” said goalkeeper Andrew Wolverton.

“I think it could have gone either way but from [the refs] vantage point it would have been hard not to call. We just need to give Mike more support there.”

With Penn State now 10-3-1 on the season, the Nittany Lions will look to get back in the win column as they take on Wisconsin at home on Sunday.

“This happened to us last year too, we dropped a few games going into the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments but we were able to turn it around,” said Maloney. “It’s all about finding that solution.”

Tune in to ComRadio at 2 p.m. on Sunday for coverage of Penn State men’s soccer as they take on Wisconsin at Jeffery field.

Jack Milewski is a freshman majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him please email him at jbm250@psu.edu.