Donigan takes away positives in overtime loss to Terps

Before Tuesday night, two things never happened to Maryland.

No opponent forced the second-ranked Terrapins to overtime on their home field, and they had yet to drop a decision in 2011.

The Rutgers men’s soccer team broke the first streak, as it entered overtime period tied at 1 with the Terps at Ludwig Field. But the second streak proved harder to overcome as the Scarlet Knights fell, 2-1, in the 96th minute.

As far as losses go, the game was one head coach Dan Donigan could not be too upset about.

“Honestly, I’m disappointed with the result, but at the same time very proud of the effort and with the soccer that we played,” he said. “The boys did a great job. It just feels very unfortunate that we could not come away with at least the tie.”

The game-tying goal came off the foot of senior forward Sam Archer for his first goal of the season. Archer buried the ball in the back of the net only two minutes after Maryland went up, 1-0, in the 19th minute.

The Rutgers defense held the Terps scoreless in the second half despite the noticeably absent Joe Setchell, a junior defender and team captain. The transfer from Tyler Junior College (Texas) was out for the game with an undisclosed injury.

On the other side of the field, the Knights offense had to operate without second-leading scorer JP Correa, who was suspended for the game due to penalties.

“I think when you go on the road and you are playing the No. 2 team in the country and you don’t have JP [and] you don’t have Setchell, it kind of puts everybody on high alert,” he said. “Everybody knows that for us to be competitive and to have the best chances, we’ll have to be working and fighting and doing all the right things every second of every play. That’s when everybody realizes, ‘We need to be on top of our game tonight,’ and it showed.”

The Knights also had to play a man down after the 71st minute, when junior midfielder Robin Brown earned a red card for a sliding tackle, ending his night.

Despite the momentum shift for Maryland, the Knights still held on until the overtime period.

“Quite honestly ... I didn’t think it was a red card, and that obviously changed the entire complexion of the game,” Donigan said. “Even then, we still didn’t change a whole lot being a man down. We were still outshooting them, and I think we had some great chances. We were going toe-to-toe with them in my opinion.”

Maryland marked the last stop on Rutgers’ out-of-conference schedule. The remainder of the season features seven Big East games in a row.

For Donigan, sending the nation’s No. 2 team into overtime was the perfect tune-up for the final portion of the season.

“At the end of the day you come away with a loss in overtime, but it’s one of the top programs in the country, and I was very happy and very proud of my team,” Donigan said. “It is definitely something to build off of and feed on coming into conference play now.”