The Bison men’s soccer team took on Army West Point this past Saturday night at Lewisburg’s own Emmitt Field. After a long fight the Black Knights came out on top with a 2-1 victory, putting the Bison at a record of 2-5-1 overall and 0-1-1 in Patriot League play.

While the Black Knights dominated the first half of the game, the Bison were able to hold the score at 0-0 for the first 45 minutes.

Within the first few minutes of the second half Army converted on a well-executed header crossed into the six. The Black Knights followed up minutes later with a shot into the back of the net to put them up 2-0.

The Bison were in control most of the second half and were able to score around the 70th minute. Eddie Perez-Pelaez ’23 headed a cleared ball to teammate Patrick O’Hara ’22, who was about 25 yards out when he rifled a shot into the net, scoring his first goal of the season. 

Army held onto their lead for the remainder of the game. Though the Bison had numerous opportunities to score off of a couple of corner kicks late in the game, they were unable to capitalize on these chances. Army went home with the victory to improve their record to 5-2-1.

Reflecting on the game, men’s head coach Matt Brown noted that, “It was a very challenging physical game that could have gone either way, [and] unfortunately it didn’t go the way we wanted. As a group we need to compete for 90 minutes and we just fell short in this category.”

The Bison finished with 14 shots on goal, seven shots in each half. Goalkeeper Bennett Schwartz ’23 tallied three saves.

The Orange and Blue play next at Lehigh University Sept. 29 at 7 p.m., where coach Brown hopes to see “a positive reaction from the guys.”