Temple Men’s Soccer entered Friday’s game against Penn hoping to end its recent slump. The Owls’ offense was scorching to open up the season with four goals in their first two games, but have failed to get on the scoreboard since.
To end the drought, Temple had to get past a Penn team riding high after a victory against then No. 3 Pittsburgh. It took all but 10 minutes to realize that an upset was never in the cards as the Quakers got on the board in a flash.
The Quakers made sure the Owls couldn’t recover, holding them to just four shots. Penn exploded in the second half, putting away three goals in a seven-minute span to send Temple home with a loss.
Temple (1-2-2, 0-0-0 American Athletic Conference) crumbled against City 6 rival No. 24 Penn (2-0-0, 0-0-0 Ivy League) 4-0 at Rhodes Field on Friday night. The Owls recorded just four shots throughout the night as the Quakers had 19 shots with 12 on goal.
”We started slow, got our feet in the second half,” said Temple head coach Bryan Green. “We just needed a little more bite and dynamic plays in the attacking third.”
Both teams were unable to gain an edge early on with neither side posing much of a scoring threat. Penn needed just 10 minutes to snap out of its early funk though, and midfielder Patrick Cayelli snuck a ball past Temple keeper Flannan Riley to give the Quakers the lead.
The opening goal was the spark that Penn needed, finishing with 13 shots in the first half. The Quakers created offense in other ways with four corners, but they did not score again in the half.
Temple’s offense has been stagnant since its win against Villanova on Aug. 25, and Friday was no different. The Owls followed up their four-shot outing against American on Sept. 2 with another four shots, including just one in the first 45 minutes.
The Owls finally put a shot on goal when Temple midfielder Elias Bentancourt fired a ball but it was swallowed up by Penn keeper Phillip Falcon III.
Temple was called for a season-high 18 fouls in their last outing and continued that aggression against the Quakers. They were called for nine fouls in the contest, and Temple midfielder Lukas Egarter was the first player in the match to get a booking as he received a yellow card in the 34th minute.
The Owls tried to use halftime to find a life source, but it went from bad to worse as they were unable to generate any offense.
”Understanding our strengths and utilizing that to the best of our abilities,” said forward Xavier Rimpel. “We try to find weaknesses in our opponents but sometimes we have to look internally.”
The Owls’ best scoring opportunity came nearly 15 minutes into the half when Bentancourt and defender Aaron Markowitz each fired off shot attempts but both were unsuccessful.
Temple’s bend but don’t break defense finally fell through in the 77th minute when Quakers forward Stas Korzeniowski put home a goal, From there the floodgates were opened, and Cayelli followed suit three minutes later, freezing Riley to record a brace.
Korzeniowski found the back of the net one more time five minutes later, putting the final nail in the Owls’ coffin.
“[Penn] hit us on the counter, which they’re really good at,” Green said. “The most disappointing thing of the night was that we let that crush us mentally.”
Temple will continue on their Philadelphia road trip as they play another City 6 rival in Drexel (1-2-0, 0-0-0 Coastal Athletic Association) on Sept. 10 at 6 p.m.
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