Coming off a game in which it posted its highest scoring total of the season, the Slippery Rock University men’s soccer team hit the road last Saturday for a meeting with Bloomsburg University. The Rock was unable to replicate the offensive success it enjoyed against Pitt-Johnstown, though, and the team bowed to the host Huskies by the score of 4-1.
Having netted a pair of markers in the game three days before, Slippery Rock rookie forward Alexander tried continuing riding the scoring wave early by firing the game’s initial shot in the 10th minute.
Afterward, Bloomsburg put up an offensive display. Led by Mike Bazadona III, Carter Luckenbaugh, Tyler Madeira, the Huskies got off a series of shots before Bawe Salehi lifted one into the net’s top left corner from 30 yards out in the 20th minute.
In the 41st minute, after BU’s Madeira widened the gap by scoring his team-leading sixth goal of the campaign, the Green and White got on the scoreboard. Fed by freshman midfielder Omar Bangura, senior defender Devin Hoffman scored his first career goal in his 49th game played in a Slippery Rock uniform.
It was SRU who came out shooting in the second half. In a span of eight minutes, the team managed a quartet of shots, half of which were on goal and saved by Husky goalkeeper Brock Gould, and a pair of corner kicks.
Madeira again pushed the Huskies lead to two in the 70th minute, getting past Matt Hunsberger for the second time. After being assisted by Luckenbaugh nine minutes later, he recorded the hat trick before Slippery Rock could get another shot off. The hat trick was only the second The Rock has ever allowed, the last coming against Dowling in 2006.
The hosts held off SRU for the remaining ten minutes, dropping the Green and White’s mark to 2-3-1 in league games.
