WASHINGTON, Pa. —The Barons soccer team gave up too many counterattacking opportunities and failed to create enough significant chances in their 4-0 loss against the Washington & Jefferson College presidents.

Franciscan went down early after a giveaway in the midfield led to a quick counter over the top.  W&J's speedy right winger Jason Menni narrowly avoided the offside trap and found himself alone against Barons' goalkeeper Thomas Dosedel.  Menni beat the keeper the first of the President's four goals.

"They were a very effective counterattacking team, and we knew that was going to be one of their primary focuses," head coach Ward Rogers said. "We were trying to control the ball the way we have the last couple of games, and we gave it away in a relatively bad space."

Head Coach Ward Rogers said FUS had a difficult time breaking down the W&J defense, and were unable to find open spaces in the attacking half.  Franciscan's usual leading scorer Leo Herrmann was especially well-covered despite finishing with three shots on goal.

"We were unable to find him in critical positions," Rogers said. "We try to shoot from certain areas, and we couldn't find any of those areas today. We just couldn't break them down." 

One goal down, the Barons continued pushing forward to try and even up the score. Although Franciscan generated a few scoring opportunities, W&J took advantage of another turnover, countered and scored on a cross from the right side shortly before the end of the first half.

"They scored two goals off of crosses, and that was just us being slow to mark. They were getting more numbers in the box than we could get in the box," Rogers said.

In the second half, Franciscan continued to push for a goal to bring them back into the game.  W&J scored in the fifty-eighth minute to make it 3-0 before netting their fourth goal off a FUS defensive passing error which led to another one-on-one for goalkeeper Dosedel.

Rogers said that the passing errors were a matter of execution.

"Tonight it was speed of play," he said. "When we did create a space, we did not get a ball into that space fast enough.  By the time we got a ball there Washington & Jefferson was able to recover."

Despite frustrations on both ends of the field, Rogers credited midfielder Edwin de St. Aubin for stretching the defense and helping to provide a few good scoring chances, including a quality shot on goal. He added that the defense and Dosedel put forth strong effort but fell prey to a couple key mistakes.

 "They put a lot of pressure on us, and the defenders played pretty well," Rogers said. "Tom did a good job of directing his defenders, helping them with their positioning.  On that last goal, Tom had to come out and cut down the angle and he did the best he could."

While the Baron's failed to score any goals against the Presidents, Rogers said the performance calls for practice rather than dramatic changes in team strategy.

"We're going to keep working on what we were doing," Rogers said. "We've proven in a couple of games that it can work.  We just need to get better at doing it."

The Barons kick off conference play on the road against the University of Pitt-Bradford on Saturday, September 27 at 3 p.m.