College of Marin Men's Soccer has enjoyed an excellent run of play of late. Coming off their first conference win at Mendocino, the Mariners looked to continue against conference foe Merritt College on Tuesday, October 24th. Marin fell behind in the first half and looked to rally, but could not quite pull it out against the visiting Thunderbirds, dropping the match 2-1.
The Mariners had a full complement of players for the home match, and began on the attack, with a few nifty sequences of passes, however they were unable to muster a solid attempt on goal. On the other side of the ball, Merritt was relentless at pushing the pace and were very aggressive with the counter attack. The Marin defense remained stalwart until the 25th minute when Mohammad Haseen scored for the visitors off a pass from Aimen Sharay. Marin kept pressing hard throughout the final 20 minutes of the half and rewarded with a goal just at the half time whistle, however it was disallowed for offside.
The second half started much like the first as Marin played well, but were unable to score. Merritt increased their lead to 2-0 after ten minutes of second half play. Down, but not out, Marin finally found their breakthrough as Jason De Leon scored from close range off a corner. The ball ping ponged around in the 18 yard box before falling to Alex Argueta who setup De Leon for the score. The Mariners still trailed 2-1 but played with a renewed confidence, they had a pair of excellent chances but one shot flashed wide and other hit the cross bar.
Merritt on the other hand, made a chance out of nothing, as touch foul was called in the box resulting in a penalty. The Merritt attacker stepped to the penalty spot, his shot was low and to the right, and Marin's Colin Sneddon did an excellent job to palm away the attempt. The deflection rebounded right to another Merritt play who blasted a shot on not. Sneddon, who dove to his left initially, was able to recover to punch the oncoming shot up and over the net. It was a remarkable pair of saves for the Mariners keeper.
Despite, Sneddon's heroics to keep the score line close, Marin was unable to push across another goal, and fell by a final score of 2-1 to Merritt College.
Sneddon made seven saves on the afternoon while De Leon scored his team leading third goal of the year.
"Credit to Merritt today for making a few more plays down the stretch than we did, to get a result" Said Head Coach Michael Crivello. "We simply need to make a few more game changing plays moving forward if we want to get back in the win column."
Marin has that chance on Friday, October 27th at home against Napa Valley College at 4pm.
