Brockport men's soccer enters SUNYACs as No. 3

The Brockport men’s soccer team lost a tough 2-1 away game in a double overtime SUNYAC contest Saturday Oct. 20 against the Plattsburgh Cardinals. The Golden Eagles are 6-2-1 for the year, and are now the No. 3 seed heading into the SUNYAC tournament.

The Eagles were very close to earning a first-round bye in the SUNYAC tournament with a possible No. 2 seed, but will now take on No. 5 seed New Paltz in the first round. Brockport won the  regular season match 5-2.

Midfielder Dan Turchan scored for the Eagles with a header off of a corner kick from freshman forward Nick Tata six minutes into the game for an early 1-0 lead.

Plattsburgh tied at 19:36 and the rest of the game was evenly matched, but both teams failed to score in the rest of regulation.


Freshman goalkeeper Casey Sullivan played the entire game and had one save.

The Cardinals topped shots on goal over Brockport 14-10. There were six total shots on goal.

Each team shot the ball once in the first overtime period, but no one scored, so the game moved on to the second overtime.

The Eagles had another scoring opportunity 104 minutes in, once more from Tata but did not find the back of the net.  Plattsburgh then took the ball downfield and scored in the 107th minute off of a scramble inside the box for the win.

Head Coach Gary LaPietra said one thing the Eagles needed to improve on was its time management.  
“The game was pretty close to the end,” said LaPietra. “We knew what we needed with a tie. The guys need to be more aware of  how to close the game out, and I don’t think we did a good job in the last few minutes of that game doing that.”

Plattsburgh earned the overall top seed in the SUNYAC Tournament with Oneonta following right after. Both teams are 7-2 in the conference.

The Eagles are the No. 3 seed and will take on No. 6 seed New Paltz in the first round Saturday, Oct. 27 at home.

LaPietra said in order to get ready for the tournament, the Eagles will try to get over the weekend.

He said the team has to have a different mentality when its playing elimination games and that’s what the players have to focus their attention on.

“We have to pay attention to the little things during the game,” LaPietra said. “Something like a corner kick with two minutes left to lose the game, those are details that we practice on a regular daily practice regiment, but you’ve got to do a better job in these pressure-packed games.”

He said his staff is going to work with the younger members of the roster because they have not been a part of playing in the pressure games.

“That was an issue from the weekend, too,” LaPietra said. “I don’t want to use the word fearful, but they were just a little bit intimidated by the environment sometimes.”

Brockport’s matchup against New Paltz Oct. 27 will be at 1 p.m. The winner will advance to take on No. 2 seed Oneonta at 1 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 31.