Men's Soccer

"I'd watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch over this," said a helpless spectator to his wife on a blistering hot Saturday afternoon at Buffalo's RAC field. That outburst just about summed up the University at Buffalo's men's soccer team's (1-2-1) first home contest of the season.

In the Bulls' first game they faced the Bucknell Bisons (4-0) and lost the battle 2-0. Throughout the first half UB and the Bisons went back and forth, play to play, fighting to be the first team to take the go-ahead goal.

Bucknell grabbed the lead 68 minutes into the game with a dribbler by freshman Eric Brunton on UB goalie and captain Brian Wozniak. Sophomore Jonathan Hemmert picked up an assist on the goal.

The score sucked the life out of Buffalo and gave the Bisons an advantage they would keep for the remainder of the game. At the 89:42 mark, Bucknell finished the job, as junior Chris Beekman threw away UB's hopes on a pass by senior Steve Feather.

UB outshot Bucknell 11-9, but were no match for Bison's goalkeeper Adam Edwards, who put on a stellar performance in earning a shutout and recording six saves.

"We should've won, in the first half we should've had three or four goals, our team had terrific opportunities and we consistently failed to capitalize on them," said Buffalo Head Coach John Astudillo. "Also, credit must be given to Adam Edwards who played great goal."

On Sunday UB had an afternoon game against a team that has been red-hot, the Robert Morris University Colonials. Buffalo once again played a great first half and much like the day before created goal scoring situations, yet once again came up empty-handed.

This time was different however, for when the second half began, UB quickly jumped on the board at the 48:10 mark with a goal by freshman T.J. Osbourne, assisted by captain Mike Peplinski. The lead would be short-lived, with the Colonials responding by scoring two unanswered goals to put the Bulls into quite the familiar hole. The damage was first caused by a penalty shot by junior Jamie Dodds and then added to by a goal by senior Ben Abebe.

The question remained, would Buffalo collapse like they had the day before or could they overcome the one goal deficit as the clock winded down? At the peak of desperation, with less than 9 minutes left (82:55), UB's male athlete of the week, senior Geoff Thompson, scored a crucial game-tying goal to ignite the Bulls home crowd.

The score stood at 2-2 and would end in a tie, but the game proved Buffalo had the ability to come together down the stretch and put a point on the board in the most crucial of circumstances.

"The team played well enough to win today; coming into the match-up we knew Robert Morris had many strengths," said Thompson. "Our specific focus was defending successfully against their midfielders and we did just that."

Buffalo's next game will be a home match-up against Army on Thursday, September 12th at 2 p.m. on RAC field.