In its first game since entering all three national polls, the Elon University men’s soccer team lost a 4-3, back-and-forth affair with the Wofford College Terriers at Rudd Field. The loss snaps the team’s three game winning streak, a run that saw the Phoenix beat two nationally ranked opponents in succession.
The defense, stingy throughout the Phoenix’s three game run, conceded four goals. It was the first time the back line had given up more than three goals since the Phoenix’s first game of the season, against High Point University August 25 in Rhodes Stadium.
Junior midfielder Daniel Lovitz knows defense is his team’s calling-card, which makes their performance against the Terriers that much more disappointing.
“We haven’t [given up four goals], which is what we pride ourselves on, our defensive shape," Lovitz said. “Four goals won’t happen again and that’s our aim right now, to make sure it never happens again. Picking the ball out of your own net four times is never a good thing to do.”
Fellow junior midfielder Matt Wescoe scored his second and third goals of the year, the first in the 53rd minute to give the Phoenix a brief 2-1 lead, and the second in the 85th minute to tie the game at three and send the match into overtime. After Wescoe’s second goal, momentum had swung back in the Phoenix’s favor.
To Lovitz, the tying goal was yet another example of the Phoenix’s never-say-die attitude. An attitude the team has shown on multiple occasions this season.
“That’s the character of our team, we’re never going to give up,” Lovitz said. “We all know, no matter what the score is going into the last few minutes of the game, that we have a shot. So when we were getting goals back at the end of the game [against Wofford] we thought it was going to be a similar story [and] that we were going to win in OT.”
While the loss was discouraging, junior defender Nick Butterly stressed the importance of moving on and preparing for Friday night’s game at Georgia Southern.
“[Losing in overtime] is pretty discouraging, but we got to put it behind us,” Butterly said. “We have another game three days later so we’re already thinking about getting three more points Friday night.”
The loss to Wofford is perhaps most damaging to the Phoenix’s position in the national polls, where they are ranked as high as No. 17 this week. Although head coach Darren Powell isn’t worried about where the Phoenix stands in a mid-season poll.
“The rankings are all very subjective from state to state and from region to region,” Powell said. “I think it’s very nice to be ranked. I think on the basis of our scores, probably we deserved a chance to break in but it’s very hard to compare a team on the west coast to a team on the east coast, based on scores. So you can’t really tell which team is better.”
Despite questioning the validity of the polls at this time of year, Powell is excited about the exposure his program is getting as a result.
“Obviously when you get recognition for the program nationally, it’s always exciting for everyone involved,” Powell said. “To get Elon on the national map is very exciting but at the same time we all know as a playing staff and a coaching staff that at this point in the year, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s where we finish at the end of the year.”
Wescoe is aware of how historically significant his team’s ranking is, but is nevertheless determined to remain humble.
“It’s an important thing, it’s what we strive for but we don’t need to get big heads about it,” Wescoe said. “We have to take it in stride. Where we end up at the end of the year is what’s more important than [how] we’re looked at during the year.”
For Lovitz, the recognition their ranking has brought to the team is well deserved and long overdue.
“I can’t even put it into words how much [being ranked] means to us,” Lovitz said. “It means everything to us, to the school. [We] can’t read into it too much because the games come ‘thick and fast’ as coach always says. It’s very nice to see or recognition finally, we thought we’ve earned it for a while but we understood we had to do some big things, and this year we’ve started to do them.”