After a seven-game winning streak, men’s soccer finally found themselves in the losing column after falling 3-2 to Laurentian on Sunday.
In the second half, the streak appeared to be intact, with Queen’s coming back from down two, with goals from midfielder Oliver Coren and defender Kristian Zanette equalizing the score.
“We weren’t performing to the standard we should have been,” Coren said. “We found ourselves down two-nil to two really sloppy goals. We made a lot of changes in the second half, we played with a lot more urgency, a lot more ion.”
However, a 90th minute goal headed off a corner by Laurentian’s Nick Franke stole the result in the game’s final moments.
“It was heartbreaking,” Coren said. “But we only had ourselves to blame, there’s no way we should’ve been two down.”
In their 1-1 Saturday game against Nipissing, Coren also felt the team didn’t play their best performance.
Queen’s captain Andrew Martin scored the lone goal of the game, tying the game up in the 69th minute after going down to a Nipissing goal.
“It was tough conditions and a physical team, but we didn’t do enough to win, to be honest,” he said. “We didn’t get the urgency in our performance until we went a goal down. We had a lot of chances to grab a winner after we tied it up. We didn’t perform well enough for the three points.”
The poorly-maintained grass field and lengthy trip contributed to the team’s inability to string together solid series of play over the weekend, according to Coren.
“It is a long trip, and it’s easy to make excuses about the condition of the pitch, but it shouldn’t be an excuse,” he said. “It shouldn’t have an impact on our play but unfortunately it did.”
Though the Gaels picked up just a single point on the weekend, Coren has high hopes for the team this season.
“The weekend was a big disappointment, but it’s a credit to how well we’ve been playing before that,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do about it now, we’re still really confident going into our remaining fixtures. We still see ourselves as the decider of our own fate.”
Two of key games will be at the end of the regular season later this month, when the Gaels play host to Nipissing and Laurentian.
“At home, we get to play on a turf field where it’s much easier to play our style of soccer, and we’ll be expecting six points,” Coren said.
“Not that we shouldn’t have picked up six this weekend,” he added.
The Gaels have a lone game this week, playing RMC at home on Friday night before Thanksgiving weekend.
“Last time at RMC it was a far from easy game,” Coren said of the Gaels’ 2-1 victory. “It’s going to be a grind. Every game in this league is tough.”
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