COLGATE EARNS FIRST VICTORY WITH OFFENSIVE EXPLOSION

September 9, 2000  

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by Scott Schuster, Colgate Student Assistant 

HAMILTON, N.Y. -- The Colgate University men’s soccer team earned its first victory of the 2000 season in their home opener at Van Doren Field with a 6-2 win over the Binghamton Bearcats in a non-conference match Saturday evening.

After losing the first three games of the season, the Red Raiders were on a mission to win, especially in front of a home crowd of 1,100 fans.  Colgate senior midfielder and co-captain Conor Harrison recorded his second and third goals of the season while adding an assist to lead the Red Raiders victory.

Binghamton tied the score at 2-2, but Harrison helped Colgate regain the lead with a header off of Tim Gerges’ indirect kick that just eluded the hands of Binghamton goalie Jon Locitzer.  Harrison’s second of the night came just one minute later as he received a touch pass from fellow co-captain Brendan Skonieczki, putting Colgate up 4-2.

“The basic thing we tried to do tonight was win the battles in the box defensively and we won those and then offensively we wanted to attack with speed,” Colgate head coach Mike Doherty said. “When we got a chance to go we wanted  5 or 6 guys going as fast as we could, which we didn’t do well in the first half, but we got it going in the second half.

The Red Raiders added two more goals from freshman Jon Gelman and Skonieczki at 78:33 and 82:36, respectively.  Gelman scored his first collegiate goal when he put in a rebound off the hands of Locitzer. Skonieczki followed with his third of the season on two touch passes from Michael Henes and Conor Harrison.

“I just thought the difference for us tonight was when we didn’t have the ball we defended with 11 guys, when we had the ball we attacked with more numbers than usual,” Doherty added.

Senior defender Josh Viel opened the scoring for Colgate with his second goal of the season after a penalty-kick was awarded on a Binghamton defender’s foul.  Both of Viel’s goals this season have come via the penalty-kick. 

Freshman Jimmy Ventriglia also recorded his first collegiate marker on a chip shot over the outstretched hands of Locitzer to cap off a rather cautiously played half for both teams.

Binghamton came out firing in the second half with two early goals in the 56^th and 58^th minutes.  Binghamton senior Matt Ryan placed a perfect through ball to teammate Motty Gutflais who beat diving Colgate goalie Jon Brunell with a hard shot to the left side of the goal for Binghamton’s first marker.

Gutflais initiated the next score assisting on Rodney Rigg’s goal with a cross through the middle.  After shaking off the two scores, Brunell settled down to record eight saves for his first career win evening his record to 1-1-0 on the season.

"It wasn’t like we did a lot different tonight, we went into the first weekend with a lot of injuries and other players that just weren’t set in with what we were doing,” Doherty said. “We had a lot of inexperienced players on the field and I think with each game and the addition of the personnel that we were without we have improved .”

The Red Raiders resume action on Friday, September  15^th against St. Peter’s at Van Doren Field with kickoff at 7 p.m.