Heading into halftime of Sunday’s men’s club soccer match between Oregon and Oregon State, the Ducks’ defense withstood the Beavers’ attack. Oregon State drove the ball into Oregon’s defensive third on several occasions but the Ducks cleared out all potential scoring opportunities keeping the game tied at zero.
The Ducks weren’t nearly as fortunate in the second half.
Oregon State had a pair of goal-scoring headers early in the half and then added another late goal to earn a 3-0 win over Oregon at the UO Rec Fields.
“We let in those (two) goals and it just fell apart from there,” head coach and center defensive back Alex Riley said, “It was two lucky goals. Great crosses in and then their guys were just taller.”
The Oregon defense bent, but didn’t break in the first half. However, that changed in the 57th minute. Oregon State’s Borce Atanasov headed a ball past Oregon keeper Mak Lundquist for the game’s first score.
Ten minutes later, the Beavers delivered on yet another cross into the box from the right side. This time, it was Oregon State striker Kellyan Kande who jumped over Oregon defensive back Andrew Wohl to deliver the goal-scoring header.
With the Ducks desperately trying to get on the scoreboard, Oregon State caught them off-guard on a counter-attack in the 76th minute to make their third goal of the match. The Beavers strung together a series of passes, culminating in a wide-open shot in front of the net by Atanasov. It was his second goal of the game.
“We were trying to push and get some more goals, trying to come back and they caught us on the counter,” Wohl said. “I just remember I was back and suddenly they had three guys coming back at myself and Luke (Connolly) and there’s not much you can really do about that.”
The Ducks opened the game with a 4-4-2 formation but switched it up at halftime after failing to get the ball out wide to their wings. Riley decided to change to a 4-3-3 formation in the second half. He said that allowed them to open the field and start better offensive drives.
Unfortunately, the Ducks weren’t able to capitalize offensively and suffered their first loss of the season.
“I’m glad we lost 3-0 because now we can learn from that,” Riley said. “We needed that to really get into shape. At practice we’re definitely going to work on our fitness, we’re going to work on our touches, work on getting wide and this will be a whole different game two weeks from now when we play again. We’re going to play them again soon and we’re going to beat them.”
Oregon will take next week off from competition before hosting Lewis and Clark College on November 7 at 7:15 p.m. at the UO Rec Fields. You can find more information about the Oregon club team on their Facebook page.
Follow Chris Mosch on Twitter @chris_mosch