Men's College Soccer
Lafayette College 1, Rider University 0
LAWRENCEVILLE-The Broncs lost the 2009 season opener to Lafayette Tuesday. "I thought we should have had a better outcome," said Rider head coach Russ Fager. "We had some quality chances."
The Leopards (1-0) scored on a steal in the 14th minute of the game for the only goal of the contest. "What cost us today was a comedy of mistakes that led to their goal," Fager said, "which is just unfortunate because I don't think we'll make those kinds of mistakes on the field to often."
Lafayette out-shot Rider (0-1) 14-8 and held a 7-3 advantage in corner kicks. "If we can play better defense, and play the ball to feet we'll have a much better chance to score goals," Fager said.
Rider has 12 new faces on the roster this year and many of them saw quality minutes on Tuesday. "We got a lot of youngsters in the game today," Fager said. "I thought Fitzgerald (freshman Ryan Fitzgerald of Yardville, N.J./Steinert) played well, Sebastian (freshman Brandon Sebastian of Monroe Township, N.J./Monroe Twp.) played very well back at the back, I thought Kotowski (freshman Sam Kotowski of Cranbury, N.J./Princeton) did a good job so we got some guys baptized today."
Bronc senior goalkeeper Dylan Hastings (Tabernacle, N.J./Rutgers) made nine saves. "In the second half Dylan did a much better job asserting himself," Fager said. "He made some nice saves at the end that kept us in the game."
Phillip Nelson made four saves for Lafayette.
The Broncs lost 1-0 in overtime at Lafayette last year. The last time Rider defeated Lafayette was 1988. The Broncs are 17-23-2 against Lafayette in the series that began in 1948.
"Lafayette is a very good team," Fager said. "They mark up well, they pressurize and they took us out of our game. We try to play a possession game and they made us play long ball, and we're not a long ball team."
Rider travels to Harrisonburg, Virginia to take on host James Madison Friday and High Point Sunday at the JMU/Comfort Inn Invitational. "JMU at JMU is always a great game," Fager said. "They always put a real good team on the field. It's a big-time soccer program down there."
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