Valiant Effort By Eagle Men
The Emmaus men's soccer team kicked off their second match of the weekend on the road against touch conference foe Manhattan Christian College. The Eagles were coming off of a tough 3-2 loss to Barclay College the previous day despite holding a 24-6 edge in shots.
The game got off to a good start for the Eagles who locked in their defense and consistently thwarted the Thunder attack. The Eagles also produced several dangerous attacks of their own and were rewarded in the 20th minute when keeper Gabriel Salinas (#5) played a long pass to forward Mason McCarl (#7) who flicked the ball on to Nick Fairley (#9) who chipped the Thunder keeper from a tough angle. Emmaus then held on to the 1-0 lead and came close to adding to it in the 38th minute when Elijah Barsness (#1) saw his close range effort parried away by the Thunder keeper.
For their part, the Thunder continued to press the attack and finally managed to score in the 40th minute when a speedy outside midfielder (#6) managed to beat the Eagle defense and scored from a tough angle to make it 1-1 at the break.
"I thought our guys played a fantastic half and gave Manhattan all they could handle. By my calculation the shot count was even through 45 minutes and our guys were battling hard." (Coach Brown)
The second half picked up where the game started with both sides battling back and forth. In the 58th minute, however, a bad bounce saw a Thunder forward win a ball on the endline and cross to the back post where a waiting teammate calmly finished the ball. Minutes later they added another goal to take a more comfortable 3-1 lead. The Eagles fought on valiantly and did manage to develop some dangerous attacks, but tired legs and a determined Thunder team prevented an Eagle comeback. When the final whistle blew the scoreline read 5-1, though the final score doesn't tell the whole story.
"Our guys played so hard today. We created chances, played good defense, and made some great decisions on the field. Manhattan is always a tough team and I thought our guys really made them earn it today even with tired legs and some unfortunate injuries. The good news is that we proved that we can play with them and we made some mistakes that we can correct, so this was really a great game for us to build on." (Coach Brown)
The Eagles wrapped up their five game road stretch and look forward to playing at home starting next weekend against visitors Ozark Christian and Calvary University. Kickoff against Ozark is set for 4:00 on Friday.