The Temple men’s soccer team fell hard in their Atlantic 10 opener as St. Joseph’s University tallied six goals on 20 shots to hand the Owls their worst loss of the season in a 6-1 blowout Saturday at Finnesey Field.
St. Joseph’s freshman forward Andrew Kulinski set a freshman single-game scoring record for the Hawks with three goals and two assists as SJU snapped a three-game losing streak, while extending the Owls losing streak to four.
Kulinski opened the scoring for the Hawks, slamming home a rebound off of a shot by junior midfielder Ryan Dougherty in the 37th minute to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead. Less than two minutes later, the two teamed up again as Dougherty fired a perfect cross pass from Kulinski past Temple freshman goalie Cornelius Murphy to extend the Hawk lead to 2-0.
Kulinski helped SJU maintain their late first-half dominance by netting his second goal of the game early in the second period of play. The freshman provided the Hawks with a three-goal lead when he scored an unassisted goal on a long run in the 48th minute of play.
Junior midfielder Jim Raisch cut the SJU lead to 3-1 when he scored his first goal of the year for the Owls in the 51st minute off an assist from junior Angelo DiCarlo. The Hawks quickly erased any momentum the Owls might have received from the Raisch goal by registering two goals of their own within a span of one minute.
Two minutes after Raisch’s goal, SJU senior midfielder Matt Cox nailed a direct kick past Murphy into the top-left corner of the net. A minute later, senior back Erick Bodge scored off a Kulinski pass to provide the Hawks with a nearly insurmountable 5-1 lead.
Kulinski finished out the scoring, notching the first hat trick of his collegiate career and the first SJU hat trick since 1998. Dougherty and freshman Tom Brislin assisted on the goal.
While Temple head coach David MacWilliams was understandably displeased by his team’s performance, he didn’t give any excuses for his team’s poor outing.
“We knew it was going to be a tough game going in,” MacWilliams said. “Playing on turf, we knew they were going to have the advantage, but we still felt we were prepared for this game. We are all thoroughly disappointed to say the least.”
In a game that saw the Hawks control the flow of play for almost the entire game, the Owls registered only nine shots on goal and forced SJU freshman goalie Michael Drozdick to make only one save in the Hawks’ winning effort. Murphy ended the game with six saves on 20 shots in net for the Owls.
With Temple on the losing end of such a lopsided battle, it was difficult for MacWilliams to find positives in his team’s losing effort.
“When you have a tough loss like this, it’s hard to find any particular bright spots,” MacWilliams said. “I think the whole team just experienced a big let down after those first two goals.”
The loss was Temple’s first to SJU since Oct. 24, 1994, when the Owls suffered a 4-2 defeat. In addition, six goals marked the most allowed by a Temple team to SJU in the series’ history, and the 6-1 loss was the largest margin of defeat ever by a Temple team to the Hawks.
With the loss, the Owls’ record fell to 1-4 overall, 0-1 in the A-10, and 1-2 in the Philadelphia Soccer 7. The Hawks improved their record to 3-4 on the season, 1-0 in the A-10, and 1-3 in the Philadelphia Soccer 7.
For the Owls, it was a night they are hoping that they will soon forget.
“A lot of times when you lose a game like this you have to wait a week or two until your next game, and your team often dwells on it,” MacWilliams said. “I think we are fortunate that we can get right back and play the University of Pennsylvania
Tuesday.
“Hopefully we will have a better result and we can put this loss behind us.”
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