Women's College Soccer
Manhattan College 1, Rider University 0
MAAC Championship Tournament
ORLANDO, FLORIDA—The Rider University women's soccer season came to an end Thursday with a loss to Manhattan College in the first round of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championship Tournament at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex.
“We played well,” said Rider head coach Drayson Hounsome. “We had good opportunities. With three seconds left in the game we played a ball over the top with a player on the end of it but couldn't quite get it, but we played until the very end, we just didn't do enough offensively.”
Rider (7-11-1, 3-6 MAAC), the eighth seed, lost 1-0 to the ninth seed, Manhattan, just one week after defeating the Lady Jaspers (8-9-2, 2-5-2 MAAC) 4-1 at Rider.
“We played okay,” Hounsome said. “Manhattan came out with a lot of energy in the first half, which we expected after last week's game.”
Manhattan scored the only goal of the game in the ninth minute of play on a blast from the right side into the top half of the net by Tara Gleason. “We made a mistake and they capitalized on it,” Hounsome said. “They scored a good goal. From that point on we were chasing the game.”
Rider freshman goalkeeper Jenn Nichols (Stratham, N.H./Exeter) made three saves.
Manhattan out-shot Rider 10-8 and had four shots on goal while Rider had three shots on goal. Freshman Abi Cottam (Leominster, England/Ludlow) had four of Rider's shots. Cottam had three assists against Manhattan last week in just her sixth collegiate game after returning from a preseason injury.
“I thought (senior) Alison Brody (Alexandria, Va./West Potomac) played well for us as a wide midfielder and (freshman) Angela Monaco (Holtsville, N.Y./Sachem) had a great game at left back,” Hounsome said. “There were many solid performances but no real great performances.”
Brody graduates 13th in career scopring at Rider.
Rider out-shot Manhattan 6-5 in the second half. “We came out in the second half with good energy and we pushed and pressed,” Hounsome said. “Their goalie made a few good saves.”
Kara Davis was credited with three saves for Manhattan.
“It was very hot,” Hounsome said of the sunny, 87 degree Florida weather. “Sometimes that is a neutralizer. Some of our better players didn't play as well in the heat.”
The Broncs and Jaspers have now met 15 times since the series began in 1997 with Rider winning four and there have been three ties. The last time Rider defeated Manhattan before this year was in 2005.
“Manhattan is a good team and it was a good game,” Hounsome said.
Manhattan will now play the top seed, Loyola University Maryland (13-4-2, 9-0 MAAC) on Friday at 1:45 pm in the quarterfinals.
Now in its 13th year in the MAAC, Rider is 5-6 in MAAC postseason play. This was Rider's first postseason game since 2005 when the MAAC also had a 10-team tournament in Florida. That year Rider was also the eighth seed and defeated the ninth seed Manhattan 4-0 in the first round before losing to top seeded Loyola in the quarterfinals.
In 2004 Rider was the third seed in the four-team MAAC Tournament and upset the second seed Siena 3-1 in the semifinals before losing to the top seed, Loyola, 2-0 in the Title Game.
In 2003 Rider was the fourth seed and lost 4-2 to the top seed, Loyola in the semifinals. In 2002 Rider was the fourth seed and upset top-seeded Fairfield 2-1 in double overtime before losing to the second seed, Loyola in the finals.
In 2001 in the 10-team MAAC Tournament Rider was the seventh seed and defeated the 10th seed, Saint Peter's 5-0 and upset the second seed, Fairfield, 1-0 in the quarterfinals before losing in the semifinals to the third seed, Loyola on penalty kicks (5-4) after a 1-1 overtime tie.
Rider's seven wins this season under second year head coach Drayson Hounsome was the most since winning 12 games in 2004.
“We definitely improved from one year to the next, which is encouraging,” Hounsome said, “but our goal was to get double digits in the win column. We're disappointed not to achieve that because I think we were good enough to. But there is a big difference between this year and last year. This year we out-played some good teams. That was encouraging, in terms of how we played, more so than the end results.”
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