The men’s soccer team’s first Atlantic 10 Conference game of the year ended in dramatic fashion.
With the final seconds ticking off the clock in the overtime period, junior defenseman Jake Lister found himself in the right spot at the right time for the game-winning goal, giving Temple a 2-1 victory.
“[Senior midfielder Cody Calafiore] heard the clock winding down,” Lister said. “He didn’t even look up. He just kicked the ball up into the box and I just happened to be there”
Junior midfielder Ryan Bradbury tied the game with 25 minutes left in the second half. Jared Martinelli recorded his sixth assist in game, as he moves into a first place tie with junior Vaughn Spurrier for most helpers on the team.
The first half was a physical one. Calafiore was yellow-carded after arguing with the officials, one of many times Calafiore chatted with the refs. Senior midfielder Andrew Dodds was later ejected for hitting a member of St. Bonaventure after the whistle blew.
“It was a typical A-10 game,” coach David MacWilliams said. “I think the ref wanted to keep the game under control, but to my liking I think there was too many yellow cards.”
The Owls came out with a much greater tempo in the second half. They had a number of scoring chances before Bradbury was finally able to knot the game up at 1-1.
“We talked at halftime and they knew I wasn’t happy with our performance in the first half,” MacWilliams said. “I was pretty animated about it. They responded and came out here and battled their rear ends off.”
“In the second half we knew the refs were going to be throwing out cards,” Lister said. “We tried to play aggressive without giving up as many fouls. We tried to possess the ball more than anything.”
Junior goalkeeper Bobby Rosato started the game, but had to be pulled at halftime due to a hamstring injury. MacWilliams said Rosato sustained the injury in pregame warmups, but that he had not been made aware of it until after the first half.
Filling in at net, sophomore Dan Scheck came up huge for the Owls. He stopped the Bonnies twice on one-time opportunities. St. Bonaventure almost took the lead late in the second half, but they drilled the crossbar.
“He came up big time. He also had a little luck from the post,” MacWilliams said.
The Owls will now shift their focus to Sunday’s matchup against Duquesne, another conference rival.
“Duquesne is always a hard team to play,” Lister said. “They’re a really physical team and we’re just going to give them all we got.”
Tyler Sablich can be reached at tyler.sablich@temple.edu or on Twitter @TySablich.
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