The Carleton Ravens men’s soccer team split games this past weekend with a 3-0 win against Nipissing and a 2-0 loss to Laurentian.
“Three points getting taken away from you is a lot,” said Ravens midfielder Rowen Martino. “We wanted to come out big and get our three points we should have had last game and we did that.”
Martino opened the scoring for the Ravens in the 14th minute, while Tim Campos and Mekonen Lovemore-White also added singles to lead the team to a 3-0 win over Nipissing on Friday night.
“I received it on the right side of the pitch and saw my teammate Mekonen passed it for a one-two,” Martino said. “I was on a breakaway basically from there and then I hit it in the near post.”
Assistant coach Kwesi Loney said he was pleased with the victory, but added there are still areas the team can improve on.
“We have a lot of new players this year, try to build chemistry, but it was a good overall win,” he said. “We’re not anywhere near where we should be playing but we can get a win at home, take three points, that’s a good start.”
The two teams combined for 28 fouls and 3 yellow cards over the course of the game.
“That’s CIS football [soccer], that’s our league. The Eastern Conference is always like that,” Loney said. “It’s always tough to play against the teams from up north, they’re very physical. . . Quite a few teams are able to master that part of it but are still able to play the ball, and that’s always the key to success, I find.”
With less than 12 hours of rest, the Ravens returned to MNP Park on Saturday afternoon to take on Laurentian. The Ravens were unable to carry the momentum from the previous night and fell 2-0 to the Voyageurs.
“I’m not sure anything went right,” said head coach Sandy Mackie. “It was a poor performance. . . We had a couple chances in the second half which we didn’t take,” Mackie said. “No excuses.”
Mackie cited centre backs Michael Calof and Dondrae Fells as players that stood out, but said other than that, the weather was the best part of the game.
Mackie also stressed the mental application to a game as an area to improve in.
“We’ve been training every day since the middle of August,” he explained. “We need to transfer the practical part from the practice field to the game . . . Some of the senior players aren’t doing that, so we have to go back to the drawing board.”
The Ravens will travel to Kingston to play the Royal Military College on Wednesday, Sept. 9.
