Late goal against sinks Concordia

The Concordia Stingers men’s soccer team came out strong, but faltered after allowing a late goal in the first half and weren’t able to bounce back, losing 4-0 to the UQTR Patriotes Sunday afternoon.
The game started off well for the Stingers as they kept in possession for most of the first half. There weren’t many scoring opportunities for either side, with the ball being kept out of the box.
Nearing half time, Patriote midfielder Iannick Tousignant found a gap and shot it into the net, past Stingers’ goalkeeper Kyle Prillo Guaiani.
“The coaches were upset – going down 1-0 in the half, when we had possession the whole time,” he said.
“They’re still a very young team – we have trouble when we get down a goal, but we’re not intending to just give up,” said Stingers captain Bryan Bourbonnais.
In the second half strong defensive and offensive playing by both sides led it to be really close within the first 10 minutes, until the wheels came off for Concordia.
In the 67th minute, Patriotes’ midfielder Daniel Dupont connected a shot that hit off the post bouncing back out and off Prillo-Guaiani’s foot as UQTR doubled their advantage.
“I know I got a piece of it,” said Prillo-Guaiani, “but by the time it hit off the post and I felt it against my foot I knew it wasn’t good.” Bourbonnais added, “Getting an own goal is always demoralizing, with no offside calls, it can also bring team morale down.”
Just over a minute later Tousignant found a hole in the Stinger defence and lobbed it over the goalkeeper’s head, making it a 3-0 deficit for Concordia. “It’s tough, we play a solid 70-80 minutes per game, but always in the last 20 we seem to lose focus and concentration,” said Prillo-Guaiani.
That was enough for Stingers’ coach Lloyd Barker to make a switch in goal, sending veteran Daniel De Palma in to replace Prillo-Guaiani.
“It’s always nice to get a chance to play, although this isn’t the way I wanted it to be,” said De Palma, in his last year as a Stinger.
The goalie switch made little difference to the Patriotes’ offence as winger Kevin Milot headed in a Philippe St-Laurent cross that gave De Palma little chance.
However, De Palma kept the score 4-0 by making a few key saves up in close on the UQTR offence. It just wasn’t Concordia’s day period. The final whistle blew and the Stingers saw their record drop to 0-4. “We weren’t marking, and that’s something we’re going to have to address in practice this week. The weekend is going to be very tough,” said Prillo-Guaiani.
This week, the Stingers face off against Université de Montreal and Laval on Friday and Saturday respectively.

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