Before the season, the AU women's soccer team didn't plan on a Senior Day with dynamic senior forward Marcela Ricupero on crutches with a season-ending knee injury. And the Eagles probably weren't thrilled with the date set for mid October in just their fourth Patriot League match, with the final three PL contests scheduled for the road.
But for AU Saturday, the worst part was not how Senior Day started, but how it ended -- with a dramatic 90th minute game winner giving Bucknell deserved 3-2 comeback win and AU its first league loss.
"I was hoping we would come out and be ready," said an emotional Natalie Rodovsky, the senior forward who scored AU's first goal. "We knew how important this game was, I think we felt it in our hearts, and it scared us."
The Eagles, currently fourth in the PL at 2-1-1 (5-8-1 overall) now travel to last-place Lafayette and PL co-leaders Lehigh and Colgate in the season's final two weeks. They must at least maintain their fourth-place spot ahead of lurking Bucknell (8-7, 2-2 PL) to qualify for the PL tournament.
While Rodovsky admitted AU's tentativeness, Bucknell forward Jennifer Margolis struck a brave game-winner, a rocket to the upper right corner well beyond diving AU junior goalkeeper Alison Doyle. Kerry Fits-Patrick's cross from the left corner found Margolis, whose 15-yard blast was her second goal of the day ant 12th of the season.
That capped a second half where Bucknell simply outplayed, out-thought and outran the Eagles. The comeback from 2-1 down began 19 minutes earlier, when Shannon Curd's 20-yard free kick struck the left post and then the right side-netting to tie it, while a screened Doyle saw the ball too late.
That free kick was the result of a foul the AU bench thought was committed on an offside Bucknell player. AU assistant coach Alan Blackwell was most irate and had to be calmed by head coach Michael Brady. After the goal, Blackwell persisted arguing the call with unreceptive officials to the match's conclusion, perhaps mostly out of frustration.
"It's got nothing to do with the officiating today," Brady said afterward. "I'd love to use them as an excuse, but we had opportunities to win this game ourselves on several occasions. We're not going to use the referees' decisions or anything else as an excuse."
AU's best chance lept off freshman midfielder Lindsey Miller's foot, when she redirected freshman Lauren Esposito's cross from the left just wide of the near post from six yards.
Otherwise, Bucknell created most of the late chances, twice forcing Doyle into saves in the final 19 minutes and twice shooting errantly before the 90th minute winner.
As darkly as the day ended for AU, it began as brightly as the roses given to seniors Ricupero, Rodovsky and defenders Lena Winkler and Amber Sheldon in a pregame ceremony.
Rodovsky scored five minutes in, hipping in a flick-on from junior forward Jana Lee, whose head reached freshman midfielder Katelynn Donovan's left-sided corner kick. Rodovsky took pride in the goal's pedestrian nature.
"The goals that we haven't been scoring are the goals that look ugly," Rodovsky said. "We'll let the ball ricochet over and over again in the box." She later added, "that was probably the ugliest goal I've scored here."
Bucknell tied it in the 15th minute, when Margolis opened her scoring, redirecting Curd's shot into the lower right corner from six yards.
In the 35th minute, Miller put AU ahead again, deflecting a curling cross into the six-yard box from the right by junior Meg Runeari. Winkler helped, lofting a long diagonal ball to find Runeari during the build up.
But it those who couldn't participate - Ricupero, the team's most capable and clutch scorer, and sophomore Irene Karistinos, another scoring threat down the wing - that left the Eagles wondering, "what if?"
"It's been very, very emotional," Brady said of not having that tandem available. "The energy they've had on the bench, today especially in the first half, if we'd had half that energy on the field we would've gotten a great result"
