Men's soccer falls to Siena College

10/07/08 - The University of Rhode Island men's soccer team hosted the Siena College Saints Friday night, putting its undefeated home record on the line. Rhody lost its first home game of the season, when they were defeated 2-1 in double overtime in their final game before beginning conference play. Junior goalkeeper Chris Pennock allowed two goals for the first time since Sept. 14 when Boston University defeated the Rams, 4-0. The junior co-captain earned ECAC co-defensive player of the week and atlantic-10 co-player of the Week honors last week after recording two shutouts in a row. Pennock is currently second in the A-10 Conference with three shutouts.

"His recent success is a tribute to his hard work and determination," said Coach John O'Connor. "He organizes well, makes excellent decisions, and shows why he is a captain as a junior. He has had a tremendous season so far in spite of the overall results and he has even better days ahead of him."

Siena won its first game since its season opener against New Jersey Institute of Technology. After Friday's game, the Rams fell 2-1 in overtime games, following up its 1-0 OT victory over Hartford on Sept. 17.

"Overtime is a combination of mental and physical toughness and I think our guys are prepared in both areas," O'Connor said. "Mentally we try to put the guys in a training environment which demands concentration even when they are tired, and so this has carried over to the OTs versus Harvard and Hartford," he said. As far as this time around, a team breakdown led to the goal which was a shame considering how well we were playing at that time."

Rhode Island outshot Siena 26-13 Friday, but the Saints made its second shot on goal count, when senior Zach Gosse broke a 0-0 tie with his first goal of the season. Gosse's shot, from about 25 yards out, came with less than 29 minutes remaining in the first half. Siena remained on top until four minutes into the second half when Rhody senior forward Kedan Crosby scored an unassisted goal. Crosby took advantage of sophomore forward Josh Sousa's missed shot and blasted the rebound through the net for his first goal of the season.

Both the Rams and the Saints had plenty of opportunities to score throughout the remainder of the half but neither team could capitalize and the game needed OT to determine a winner.

Rhode Island put the pressure on early when Crosby was denied by a diving effort by the Saint's sophomore goalkeeper, Steve Skonieczny. Crosby stayed aggressive as well as he blasted three of his nine shots in the first OT. Neither team was able to score and the game headed into a second OT.

Siena took only three shots in the second OT and scored on its third. Senior midfielder/forward Mike DiSimone scored his first goal of the season just under five minutes into the second OT. Rhody fell to 4-4-1 and will being its conference play Sunday Oct. 12 against the University of Massachusetts.

"We have just conference games the rest of the way so we know what we have to do to be where we want to be at the end of the day," O'Connor said. "We cannot rely on anyone else, so we'll just punch the clock and get to work on reaching our goals.