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BY VICTOR BRADY

In print | Published October 8, 2009

As the fog descended around the Garnet and the Bullets, Morgan Langley ’11 buried a bicycle kick goal in the 89th minute to propel the No. 13 Swarthmore men’s soccer team over visiting Gettysburg (4-4-2, 1-3 CC) Saturday at Clothier Field by a score of 4-3.

The dramatic finish capped a frenzied evening that saw the Garnet jump out to a 3-0 lead in the first 20 minutes of play and the Bullets score three goals of their own to draw even.

With just over a minute to play, Langley scored his third goal of the game — and 10th of the season — to lift Swarthmore over their Centennial Conference rivals.

Off a corner kick from Roberto Contreras IV ’12, Dylan Langley ’10 headed the ball back across the box to where his brother waited. “I just wanted to get a foot on the ball any way possible, and it floated right in front of me,” Morgan Langley said.

The Centennial Conference awarded the younger Langley for his effort by naming him the Centennial Conference Offensive Player of the Week. In addition to Langley’s three goals against the Bullets, he had an assist to his credit in the Garnet’s 6-0 romp of Washington on Sept. 30.

With 10 goals on the season (in just 10 games), Langley is the first Swarthmore player to score 10 or more times in a season since 1995. He leads the Conference in points (23), and his 10 goals are also a conference-high, tied with Johns Hopkins’ Scott Bukowski.

But the Garnet have shown all year that individual stats are secondary to the overall success of the team, and even after his individual success, Langley was not satisfied with the way that he and his team played on Saturday. “If we get an early lead, we cannot let off the throttle.  We became lazy
with the lead, but the other teams in the conference are too good to allow us to do that,” he said.

In defeating the Bullets, the Garnet improved to 9-1 overall and 3-1 in the Centennial Conference, but this win also served as a wake-up call. Swarthmore allowed more goals in 90 minutes of play (three) than they had allowed in all of their previous games combined (two).

Head coach Eric Wagner agreed that “we didn’t play our best game defensively — we were pretty unorganized, and we lost our shape a couple of times.” Wagner attributed the flurry of Gettysburg goals to a loss of focus by players and coaches alike.

“When you take your foot off the accelerator against a good team like [Gettysburg], not only can they get one back, but they can ride the momentum for the whole match, and that’s what they did. They got us on their heels, and it was tough for us to regain the momentum,” Wagner said.

Swarthmore goalkeeper David D’Annunzio ’12 only made one save in the securing the victory, but it was one of his biggest yet. With the score tied 3-3 late in the match, D’Annunzio made a lunging save to his right on a blast from the top of the box, preventing a Bullets lead and recharging the Garnet momentum.

“We came in with the attitude that we needed this win, but once we went up [by] three goals, we became too relaxed.  We thought the job was done. [When] we let in that first goal, it gave Gettysburg the confidence that they needed to get back in the game.  It was just a huge momentum swing,” D’Annunzio said.

But the Garnet, riding ever-present waves of support from the fans at Clothier Field, were able to rebound from the momentum shift in time to preserve their top spot in the Centennial Conference standings. Head-to-head victories against Johns Hopkins and Gettysburg leave Swarthmore on top of a jumble of teams.

Fabian Castro ’12, who took three shots against Gettysburg, knows that the Garnet must stay focused as they move through conference play. “We can’t get complacent with our position and ranking.  We can’t have mental lapses to allow teams to get back in games.” Castro added that the squad is prepared to act in order to prevent this from happening again.

The three goals were the most given up by the Garnet since falling to Johns Hopkins 4-0 in 2007, but Wagner was pleased with his team’s resilience. Wagner recalled that he applauded their display of “heart” and “character” after Gettysburg evened the score. “The way we regained our composure and regained our shape and regained our momentum was not only dramatic, but it was also really telling of what this team is made of — the heart and soul that this team shows,” he said.

Last night at Richard Stockton, the Garnet picked up their 10th win of the season, coming from behind to defeat the Ospreys by a score of 2-1.

The Garnet trailed 1-0 at the half before the Langley brothers connected yet again, with Morgan picking up his team-leading 11th goal of the year on an assist from Dylan.

With under 10 minutes remaining, David Sterngold ’12 buried a shot on a feed from fellow sophomore Roberto Contreras IV, propelling the Garnet to their second come-from-behind victory of the year.

Morgan Langley’s goal was the 17th of his Swarthmore career.

Swarthmore will play two away games in the next week — on Saturday at Centennial foe Ursinus (1-7-1, 0-4 CC) and at St. Mary’s of Maryland (5-1-3) on Tuesday. The Garnet will return to Clothier Field on Oct. 17 to face Franklin & Marshall (7-2-1, 3-1 CC) at 7 p.m.

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