The men’s soccer team fell 3-1 to Dartmouth Saturday on Senior Night at Stevenson Field. The Big Green (6-7-4, 1-6 Ivy) scored within the first minute and did not look back, defeating the Bears (7-7-3, 3-2-2) in both teams’ last contests of the season. Bruno finished fourth in the Ivy League, falling one place from last year’s third.
The Bears honored Jack Kuntz ’14, Jose Salama ’14, Voltaire Escalona ’14 and Josh Weiner ’14 at the start of the match for their four years of dedication and hard work.
“It was a cool experience to get honored before the game with my other three classmates,” Kuntz said. “It’s a nice way to end your career, especially when you give so much time to the program.”
“It was definitely an emotional day,” Weiner said. “It was the last time we were able to go out and play in front of our home crowd and have all our families there.”
The Big Green got on the scoreboard 51 seconds in after a turnover in the Bears’ defensive third. Weiner saved a shot from the right side, but the rebound found its way to the feet of Dartmouth’s Gabe Hoffman-Johnson, who buried a shot to put Bruno down, 0-1.
“We made some mistakes early on which cost us,” Weiner said. “Most of the game was played evenly, but we had a few mental lapses and that was unfortunate.”
The Bears built momentum for most of the first half and registered seven shots on goal to Dartmouth’s six. Back-to-back shots by Jack Gorab ’16 and Daniel Taylor ’15 forced saves from the Dartmouth keeper, who made three stops in each half.
The Big Green doubled its lead just before halftime, when a Dartmouth forward spun a Bruno defender on the goal line and flicked a shot past the keeper to make the score 2-0.
“There was parity throughout the (Ivy) League this year,” Weiner said. “Everyone was beating up on everyone each week. … It was a great experience to play against a lot of different types of competition.”
Dartmouth continued to pile on the pressure in the second half and scored again in the 58th minute. A Big Green forward dribbled through the Bears’ defense and put a shot past Weiner to bring the score to 3-0.
Bruno struggled to unlock the Big Green defense but managed to snatch a goal back at the 82-minute mark. Tariq Akeel ’16 found Voltaire Escalona ’14 at the top of the box, and Escalona fired a shot into the bottom right corner to reduce the deficit to two.
The Bears could not find another score before the final whistle and fell 3-1.
“This team was pretty resilient,” Kuntz said. “There were lots of moments in the season where we could have broken down, but we are always fighting to the end, even last night (against Dartmouth). … This team had a lot of fight.”
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