First Half Goal Leads Canisius Past Men's Soccer

Sunday, September 14

7 pm

University at Buffalo

1-5-0

Canisius

3-2-0

Buffalo

Canisius

First Half Goal Leads Canisius Past Men's Soccer

9/14/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer

Box Score

BUFFALO, NY – The University at Buffalo men's soccer team (1-5-0, 0-0-0 MAC) was shutout for the third time this season on the road at Big Four rival Canisius on Sunday night, falling 1-0. Canisius scored the game-winning goal in the 38^th minute of the contest.

"I thought this was one of our best overall games of the season," said head coach Stu Riddle. "We did everything well except score a goal. We had a 10 minute window where we did not play very well which ended up costing us this victory."

The two teams went back-and-forth early on in the contest as the Bulls best chance to score came in the 14^th minute off the foot of Russell Cicerone. Cicerone was awarded a free kick after a solid effort by Abdulla Al-Kalisy forced the call. The Bloomfield Hills, MI native took the free kick from 20 yards out but his right-footed strike sailed over the cross bar.

Following a fantastic diving stop by Waleed Cassis in the 37^th minute, the Golden Griffins broke through with the first goal of the match. Asani Samuels got free in the box and headed the ball past Cassis after a perfect crossing pass from Lucian Preis.

The Bulls had their best opportunity of the final 45 minutes to draw even with the Golden Griffins in the 76^th minute as Nicolai Berry fed a perfect cross to the right of the goalie and Sean Young made a great diving header attempt that was pushed away by the diving Canisius goalkeeper.

Just two minutes later, Young placed a low crossing pass to the feet of Berry who had his shot blocked by the Canisius defender before it could find the back of the net. In the 84^th minute, Cassis made his third diving save of the contest to give the Bulls a chance for a late tying goal.

In the final five minutes of the match, the Bulls had a flourish of shots as Berry had two chances to tie the game and David Enstrom saw his lone chance of the game go just wide of the net off of a clearing pass from Cassis.

For the game, Canisius held the 18-16 advantage in shots while the corner kicks were tied at three. Berry led all Bulls with four shots while Kristian Lee-Him and Abdulla Al-Kalisy each had three shots in the contest.

UB will return home for their next match on Friday, September 19 as they will play host to Detroit at UB Stadium at 7:00 pm. UB will then hit the road on Sunday for a 1:00 pm kick against Duquesne.