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Sept. 27, 2015
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The Penn State men's soccer team fell 2-0 to the University of Michigan in a Big Ten Conference match Sunday, Sept. 27 at Jeffrey Field. The Sunday afternoon match honored student assistant coach Brett Gravatt and all Ability Athletes in a special halftime event.
"It is kind of like what I told our players before. Everybody wants to win, and the thing that I know that Brett, Owen, and anybody else that would like to be playing today but is not, and even the students in the stands, the one thing you have to do is honor them by giving your best effort," stated Head Coach Bob Warming. "If you go out and do not give your best effort, you dishonor everyone else who wishes that they could play."
With the loss, Penn State moves to 4-2-2 overall on the season and 1-1-1 in B1G play, while the Wolverines improve to 5-2-1 overall and 2-0-1 in conference play.
Despite the loss, the Nittany Lions outshot the Maize and Blue 15-6 and had five shots on goal compared to Michigan's three. The Blue and White also had six corner kicks in the match, while the Penn State defense allowed only three shots to reach redshirt-senior goalkeeper Matt Bersano (Tempe, Ariz.).
Junior Connor Maloney (Harrisburg, Pa.) led the Nittany Lions with two shots on goal, while freshman Dayonn Harris (Milton, Ontario) made his first start of the 2015 season and had a team-high five shots, one of which landed on goal.
"We are always looking at the positives, noted Warming. "We have a super young team out there and they had a very veteran team and probably the top player we have seen this year, Francis Atuahene, and I think our guys did a remarkable job today. Sometimes in soccer you are not always going to get a win, but what you always have to count on is that you give your best effort. And I felt like our guys gave their best effort today. We've seen teams out shoot us 50-1 and we win the game. It is what you do personally and what you do collectively that is important in the sport."
The Wolverines earned the 2-0 victory with one goal in each half as William Mellors-Blair added his third goal of the season in the first half and Francis Atuahene notched his sixth in the second half.
Michigan had an early opportunity in the sixth-minute of the match when Atuahene took a shot from just outside the 18-yard box before Mellors-Blair dribbled his way into the box and took a hard shot toward the upper left corner of the net that sailed high.
After the Wolverines controlled the ball for the opening minutes of the match, Penn State found its first shot when Harris put the ball over the net in the 15th-minute of the match.
Following the Harris shot, the Nittany Lion offense sent the ball up the field to a rushing Austin Maloney (Harrisburg, Pa.) who found the foot of C. Maloney inside the box. Maloney gained control of the ball and took a hard shot toward the net that was saved by the U-M keeper in the 21st-minute of the match.
Maloney had a second opportunity minutes later when he worked his way around two defenders and shot the ball just in the reach of a jumping Michigan keeper to keep the match scoreless.
Michigan thought it had broken the scoreless match just seconds later, but the goal was called back because a Wolverine midfielder was offside.
The Maize and Blue bounced back from the missed opportunity in the 33rd-minute of the match when Michael Kapitula made a pass to Mellors-Blair, who was striking from the left side of the box. Mellors-Blair took a one-touch shot into the bottom right corner past a diving Bersano to give Michigan the 1-0 lead in the first half.
The Nittany Lions thought they were going to receive a free kick inside the 18-yard box after Drew Klingenbeg (Gibsonia, Pa.) was pushed down, but instead a yellow card was issued to Penn State on the play, ending the exciting Nittany Lion rush.
The Blue and White were unable to generate any further offense in the closing minutes of the first half, trailing 1-0 heading into the locker room. Penn State was led by C. Maloney who had two shots on net, while Bersano made one save. The Nittany Lions outshot Michigan 8-4 and put four shots on goal compared to the Wolverine's one.
Penn State continued to find shots, opening the half with a Christian Kaschak (York, Pa.) shot that went wide, followed by a Nate Lee (Derwood, Md.) blocked shot. Harris had the Blue and White's third shot of the half when he sprinted into the box to take a shot from the left side of the box that was saved by Michigan keeper Evan Louro.
Neither team was able to gain much momentum following the Harris shot, as the match was back-and-forth between the two teams at midfield. The Nittany Lions continued to work until C. Maloney found himself in the 18-yard box with a shot that was blocked, leading to a corner kick. The corner kick from Riley Grant (Copley, Ohio) found Harris, who took a second-straight blocked shot.
Maloney found himself alone in the box in the 80th-minute after a Wolverine miscue but was unable to get a shot off as the Maize and Blue keeper came out and grabbed the ball off the foot of the junior midfielder.
Penn State looked to knot the score in the 84th-minute with a Sam Bollinger (State College, Pa.) header, but the ball went just wide of the left goal post. The Nittany Lions offensive pressure did not let up as they earned a foul and a corner shot. The ball bounced out to Harris, who tried to one-time the ball at the top of the box, but the shot went high over the crossbar.
Bersano went to clear the ball in the final minute of the match, but had a miscue that landed on the foot of Athuahene for a wide-open shot. With Bersano out of the net, Athuahene drove the ball into the back of the net for the Wolverines to earn a 2-0 victory over Penn State.
Penn State will close out the month of September Wednesday when it heads to No. 9 Akron. The Nittany Lions and the Zips are set to square off at 7 p.m. in the non-conference road match.