Rowan men’s soccer falls to Washington College at home in a heartbreaking 1-0 loss on Wednesday, Oct. 9.  

Rowan controlled the ball most of the game, firing shot after shot on the Shoremen defense to no avail. Washington cashed in on their only shot of the game from Francesco Bertolini to take the 1-0 lead at the 71:26 mark.  

“It wasn’t enough,” Head Coach, Scott Baker said. “It’s better than our last game, but still not enough. Great teams find ways to win, and we haven’t done that yet. Hopefully, the second half of the conference looks better. As good as some of the efforts were it wasn’t enough.”

The Profs sent 16 shots at the Washington goal, highlighted by Johnny Troiano’s eight shots, with three on goal. 

“I think we were doing everything right,” Troiano said. “Just couldn’t find the back of the net. Don’t regret [our performance] at all.”

With the control they had through most of the contest, it felt like Rowan was bound to come through at some point. Chris Spicer was spacing the field with excellence out wide, helping multiple pushes through the Shoremen defense.

“That’s what we’ve been working on all season here,” Spicer said. “Especially after the past couple of games where we can’t finish out games and score. We’re really working on getting that ball wide and getting it in. The ball didn’t go into the net today. It wasn’t our game, but overall, we played pretty well.”

The inability to score early goals and put teams away has clouded the last week of the season for the Profs.  

“After a game like that, it really does suck,” Spicer said. “I feel like that was their only shot. Aggression definitely comes into play. Our game style maybe goes out the door and we try to get a goal quicker, but overall we need to get one early on. We can’t let teams hang around like that, we see what teams will do. The last three or four games they’re scoring in the last 15 minutes. We have to put them away early, and we have to get three or four goals early to put them away.”

The energy and effort was not the issue tonight, as Rowan came out with aggression, pouring on shot after shot, it was just not falling today against Washington’s Cole White, who had nine saves. 

“I thought the energy for this type of game was good,” Baker said. “I thought it was good enough. This team went to the final four last year and they’re disciplined. They had their one chance, and they scored it. We had a whole bunch, and we didn’t. As far as the energy, it was good enough to win this game. We didn’t take advantage of our chances, and they took advantage of the one shot they got.”

Rowan has their third straight home game on Saturday against William Paterson and will look to find a way to put a team away early and rack up multiple goals. 

“We need an early goal,” Spicer said. “We need one, two, three goals in the first half to send them back early. Once we get two on teams in the NJAC they’ll fall down, start collapsing, and arguing with each other. So again, let’s keep our system, play out wide, get the ball, and score some goals early on.”

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