Promising Weekend (Oberlin and #7 North Park)

    Following a very disappointing loss to Kenyon last Thursday, Ohio Northern Men's Soccer had two more chances on the weekend to fight back and show what they are made of. On Saturday we played the easier opponent in Oberlin and Sunday we played the #7 ranked team in North Park. Although three games in 4 days is never an easy thing, the team knows they can compete even against top competition.

    Saturday, ONU as a whole was fired up. Almost every fall sport had an event going on, so it was a great atmosphere for the soccer game as students were roaming around everywhere. Before the game started, the team knew they needed a response from the Kenyon game, and what better time for it than the home opener? When the game did start, it was exactly what the ONU team needed. They started off on the front foot and were outplaying Oberlin everywhere on the field. ONU was creating many chances for themselves and limiting Oberlin to almost nothing. The only thing that was missing was goals, however, our first goal came early in the first half during the 19th minute, and a second one just before halftime in the 44th minute. Although having a 2-0 lead is good, the ONU team was not content with only 2 goals and wanted to score more. With that in mind, the second half was not up to standard. ONU was still outplaying Oberlin, but the goals weren't rolling in as they'd like. ONU scored only 12 minutes after halftime and was held goalless after that. Later in the second half Oberlin was able to grab a goal back to make the game 3-1 and that's how the game ended. ONU was happy with the win and ready to take momentum into the game the next day.

    Sunday's pregame atmosphere was completely different from Saturday's. It was a cool, rainy day which gave it kind of an eerie feel, but Polar Bears are built for this type of weather. ONU was up for the challenge of the elements and the opponent. As I said before, the ONU team was looking to take the momentum from the previous day and put it toward North Park. Sure enough, ONU did just that. The team once again started out on the front foot and was putting pressure all on North Park. This pressure led to ONU taking a 1-0 lead in the 15th minute of the game. This is the exact start they needed against such a big team. However, ONU stepped off the gas and North Park punished them just 4 minutes after scoring a goal. ONU continued to have an impressive half only allowing North Park to have 3 shots to their 9 shots, but that proved to not matter as ONU found themselves down 1-2 at halftime. In the second half, ONU wasn't as dominant. They were still creating chances, but North Park was more on their A-game. This led to North Park grabbing another goal making the score 1-3. Shortly After, ONU got a goal back to make the score 3-2, but it was too little too late to get them back in the game. The score line didn't reflect what ONU wanted, yet many positives could be taken from it. They just proved that they could compete against a top 10 team in the country and even dominate in parts of the game. Even if 1-0-2 is considered a bad start, ONU feels like they have something special this year. They just have to put all the pieces together at once.

Go Bears!