Cayuga Men's Soccer Comes Up Short In Home Opener

The Spartan Men's Soccer team kicked off their season today with a home loss to Clinton Community College. The first half saw a lot of action; unfortunately no one was able to put the ball in the back of the net. Will Backhouse (Swinton, England) and Muke Heri (Syracuse, NY) came close with shots with nothing to show on the score board at the end of the half.

It wasn't until the start of the second half when the Spartan took the lead with some good combination play between Will Backhouse, Muke Heri and Jacob Pritchard (Tyburn Academy). Backhouse and Heri combined to get the ball wide to Pritchard, who then took on the Clinton left back to cross the ball into the box. Cody Hoyt controlled the ball and passed it to sophomore Nahayo Manasse (Syracuse, NY)…who took one touch past a defender and placed it in the bottom right corner past the Clinton keeper.

The Spartans didn't hold the lead for long when Clinton's defense played a long ball wide, which was crossed into the box and finished by Clinton's Jamie Davidson. Clinton then took the lead to 2-1 ten minutes later to put the game out of reach for the Spartans. In the final minutes, Jacob Pritchard came very close to leveling the match, but the post denied him his goal. The Spartan coach had this to say, "It was a very unlucky game, we had some good chances to score in the first half but could not capitalize. Bior Ajak (Syracuse, NY) our goalkeeper had a fantastic game with 6 saves, along with Muke Heri, Will Backhouse and Jason Boxx (Brentford, England) but we have to take control and finish our chances earlier. The Spartans would also like to wish Kevin Murnane from Clinton (who suffered a broken leg in the first half) a speedy recovery and we hope to see him on the playing field soon."