The men’s soccer team took to the field on Oct. 22 to defeat the Mercer Bears 2-0. This moves the Bucs up to 6-6-2 in the regular season and 2-1-0 in the SoCon.
“The guys performed great today,” said coach David Casper.
The Bears put up a fight from the start of the match by taking the first three shots of the game, but the Bucs fought back so that there were no goals scored until the 19th minute when the Blue and Gold were awarded a corner kick. The shot was made by freshman Hauk Andreas Fossen (Moelv, Norway) and assisted by freshman Bradley Empson (London, England), making this his seventh goal of the season.
“We’re very excited,” said Casper. “Wins are not easy to come by in the league, so we’re very happy to be able to get our third one in a row now.”
The Blue and Gold doubled the score near the end of the first half with a goal from freshman Keiran Richards (Hamilton, New Zealand). The final minutes ending the first half also saw the Bucs with eight fouls to Mercer’s 3.
The second half was far less eventful than the first in terms of scoring, but the teams created 21 chances for goals a piece. The final buzzer rang with the 2-0 score that the match began with.
“Now that we’re all kinda comfortable with each we’re really feeling good playing with one another,” said redshirt freshman John Lucchesi (Johnson City, Tennessee). “We really feel like we understand each others play, and can kind of cover one another.”
This is Lucchesi’s first home game back on the field since he was injured on September 7 in the match against Lipscomb.
“Mercer was good, but I feel like we deserved the results that we got,” said Casper. “We dominated them for 90 minutes and top to bottom. I thought we outplayed them.”
The Blue and Gold will take the field again on Oct. 26 against UNCG, where kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.
