The GW men’s soccer team ended its 10-game winless streak with a 3-1 victory over St. Bonaventure Sunday. The win came after a 3-1 loss to Duquesne on the road Friday.
Sunday, the Colonials (2-8-3, 1-3-2 Atlantic 10) were finally able to cure their offensive woes. They got ahead early and never looked back, as junior Ben Mortimer converted a penalty kick in the 11th minute to take a 1-0 lead. Junior Jon Allen scored two and a half minutes later, assisted by senior co-captain Miller, to give GW a 2-0 lead.
Allen then scored again in the 72nd minute off of a pass by senior Andre Chapman to make it 3-0. It was Allen’s team-high fifth goal of the season. Junior goalie Derek Biss started the game and contributed with three saves.
Miller said he thought the Colonials’ play on Sunday was much more inspired than in Friday’s loss. Ten of the 11 starters were upperclassmen, and the experience elevated GW’s play.
“I think it was an attitude (change),” Miller said. “We came in knowing that this was a winnable game. If we stayed with it we were going to pull through. We turned it around a hundred and eighty degrees and we finally started putting (the shots) in.”
The Colonials came out flat in Friday’s game, quickly going down 2-0 in the first 10 minutes. In the 50th minute they finally got on the board as freshman Greg McKay found sophomore Joseph Siegel to make it a 2-1 game.
Hope of a comeback was damaged, however, nine and a half minutes later as Duquesne put one more shot into the net. Freshman Greg Yahr made only his second career start in goal, and made four saves. The Colonials only managed two shots on goal compared to Duquesne’s seven.
“We came out really flat and let up a bad goal in the first five minutes of the game, which sort of set the stage,” Miller said. “We just didn’t click as a team….the first half was terrible.”
He also believed that the star of the weekend for GW was junior midfielder Trevor Martin.
“He was the spark for the entire weekend,” Miller said.
The Colonials play Xavier next at home on Friday.
