The Bowdoin Men's Soccer Team was handed its third loss in the last five games by a strong Middlebury team on Tuesday. The Panthers, who boast the NESCAC's best defense, have allowed only five goals this season and were unwilling to make that total any larger Tuesday afternoon as they walked away with a 2-0 victory.
The closest the Polar Bears came to breaking this stingy defense came in the 41st minute when Tim Prior '11 took a feed from Nick Figueiredo '08 and hit the crossbar. Bowdoin was able to keep pace with the defensively-minded home team until Middlebury broke the deadlock with a goal in the 74th minute. The Panthers added an insurance goal from a penalty spot with under five minutes to cement the win.
"The game was a very close, hard-fought battle that probably could have gone either way," said senior co-captain Brendan Egan. "It was two solid teams running at each other and a very all-around good match. We had our chances and did not capitalize, and when they had their chances, they seized them."
The loss brought the guys back to earth after an impressive 2-1 win over Tufts last Saturday. Dominic Fitzpatrick '09 and Nick Figueiredo '08 scored a goal each to provide all the offense Bowdoin would need to defeat the Jumbos. Both goals came courtesy of the set piece as Fitzpatrick took advantage of a free kick from Harry Ashforth '09 and Figueiredo found the net off a corner from Prior. Egan said, "We were playing in a hostile environment and Tufts at times came with momentum in the second half, but we could not have dealt with it better."
This impressive win over Tufts displayed the resilience of this year's squad because it came a week after a demoralizing 3-0 loss to Amherst. The Lord Jeffs managed to put two goals on the board in the span of one minute just after kick off. This sudden offensive outburst had a destabilizing effect on the Polar Bears, who were unable to regain their composure. The loss was made even worse when Egan went down with a quarter of an hour to go because of a severe ankle injury.
The up-and-down trend of the last couple of weeks has plummeted the Polar Bears down to a fifth place ranking in the NESCAC. Fitzpatrick attributed the slump to "a shift in the mentality of the team. For a while we believed that we could just show up and rely on our talent to win us games. Now, after a couple of tough games, we realize that we have to be more physical and committed in order to match our opponents."
The team will try to get back on track with a game this Homecoming weekend against Connecticut College. This crucial conference match up will be played at 1:30 p.m.