Ryan Chell
Staff Reporter
With less than a month remaining in the regular season for the McDaniel men’s soccer team, now is the time to turn things around, says senior team captain Donzell Tate. Tate says that the beginning of the season has been a tough thing to handle, and there were several things that just were out of their control.
“So far, the season has been bumpy,” he said. “We’ve had a tougher schedule than usual, and we’ve had to overcome a few injuries as well.
That tough schedule puts the Terror in eighth place in the Centennial Conference, as McDaniel is tied with Haveford with 0-2-1 records. That tie is also ironic, because it is a tie shared between the two schools. They faced off against each other on September 20th, a game that really hit the team hard.
“That was definitely a disappointing tie,” Tate said. “We went in there needing a win, and the ball just did not roll our way.”
The Terror still have a chance to place above .500, and they have seven games remaining in their closing season-six of them inside the conference. The combined records of those teams are 28-15-5, but four of them will be played here at home, and should be another factor that should help them gain in the win-column.
If they are to move up in the conference, they have to address their main issue: the inability to score goals. The Terror have been shutout in six of their nine contests so far, and that has come back to hurt them. The defense looks impressive at times, with Mike Radcliffe, Ben Knight, and Rob Hallasch all seeing time in the net, but the offense has to keep up.
Tate talked about how because of those costly injuries and some chemistry issues, some guys have moved to positions that they are not normally comfortable with. As the season comes to a close, the plan is to have those players finally see them planted in those positions and a sense of comfort will grow in, giving the team a better performance. And if you combine that with the effort they’ve shown all season long, it will finally pay off.
“We have been more than persistent in our effort to get wins,” Tate says. “The effort and work rate have been there, but we just tend to get away from the game plans.”
The next game plan will be drawn up on Friday as the team hosts Franklin and Marshall at home at 1 P.M, and will hope to continue moving up the Centennial Conference Standings.