The Hilbert College men’s soccer team started their season off with a 2-0 home loss to Daemen College on Tuesday afternoon. The 3 pm start had perfect weather and large crowd of fans cheering both teams on in their season openers. All the scoring was done in the first 45 minutes of play but both teams continued to battle to the final horn.
Hilbert’s defense did a good job of keeping Daemen’s scorers from putting the ball in the net. The Hawks defense only allowed 15 shots on goal, forced 8 corner kicks with deflections out of bounds and were able to pull the Wildcats offensive players offsides three times all while only giving up 2 goals. Junior goalkeeper, Eric Davies (Tonawanda, NY/Tonawanda) held his own in the goal for Hilbert making 9 saves for the day.
Offensively for Hilbert, freshman forward James Knapp (Lockport, NY/St. Mary’s) performed extremely well in his first collegiate game. He played with relentless pressure causing turnovers from Daemen’s defenders which opened up space for his other team mates to get shots off. Sophomore Eric Russell (Marilla, NY/Iroquois) lead the Hawks with 3 shots on goal while senior midfielder Dave Cunningham (Cheektowaga, NY/Maryvale) got two shots off towards the net.
Daemen College was lead by senior Steve Doermer. He was a terror in front of the net leading the Wildcats with 6 shots. None of them found the back of the net though. Daemen’s scoring was by senior Chad Hopson and junior Ryan Benninger as each player was able to get the ball past Davies in the first half of play.
Coach Tim Kronenwetter felt that the first game of the year was a good evaluation of his players after a few long weeks of preseason. “We tried to go long ball too much, especially in the second half of the game which meant we didn’t posses the ball enough. We will continue to work on that and a few other skills in the training sessions to come.”
The Hawks return to action Saturday, September 5th when they face Alfred University at 10 am in the Alfred University Classic. The team will return to AU on Sunday to play Cazenovia College at 10 am to finish the weekend off.