First-year HC Giordano believes Bonnies can be ‘something special’
By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — While his side may not have come away with the result they wanted, first-year St. Bonaventure men’s soccer coach Mick Giordano admitted there were a lot of positives to take away from their season-opener.
The Bonnies fell 3-2 to Little Three rival Niagara on Aug. 21 at the Marra Athletics Field Complex, marking the program’s second consecutive defeat to the Purple Eagles. But the past carries no weight now as the program enters a new era, and while Giordano’s first game in charge went down as a tally in the loss column, he appreciated the follow-through he got from his players.
“First off, I couldn’t be more proud of our guys,” Giordano said. “They never quit, stuck to the game plan, continued to play, even until the last minute, they just kept driving, they just kept going. (The result is) disappointing for sure, we definitely had wonderful moments, but credit to what (Niagara) did, they beat us on three set pieces that were really well executed. That’s the small details at this level that we’ve just got to tidy up.”
Neither side truly controlled the opening minutes of the game, with both struggling to sustain possession for significant amounts of time. But it was Niagara that broke the deadlock via Juan Cardona, who found the back of the net straight from a corner kick.
A type of goal that, under any circumstance, could cause a team to deflate.
But not Giordano’s Bonnies.
St. Bonaventure’s Kyle Macfarlane (22) brings the ball upfield. Macfarlane scored the Bonnies’ second goal of the night from the penalty spot. (St. Bonaventure Athletics)
For the remainder of the opening half, Bona ramped up the pressure on its guests, building through the midfield and connecting like a team that was far removed from their first official game together.
The Bonnies put the Purple Eagles under extreme duress in response to allowing the game’s first goal. Unfortunately for the former, they were to concede again before the half was over, this time behind a header from Chase Dade.
But, once again, the Bonnies continued to fight. An effort that was rewarded, as they pulled a goal back mere minutes into the second half as Seth Hammond latched onto an incisive pass from Ethan Streeter and slotted in Bona’s first goal of the season.
Celebrations were short-lived though, as just 14 minutes later Niagara’s Tommy Mittelstadt restored his team’s two-goal cushion on the back of some chaos in the Bona penalty area.
Pinned back once again, the hosts had just under 30 minutes to find a way back into the game. They peppered the Purple Eagles’ back line with chance after chance and eventually, with just four minutes left on the clock, Kyle Macfarlane rifled a penalty kick straight down the middle to give the Bonnies a chance.
But time found itself the enemy of the home side, and after seeing their last-ditch efforts repelled, Bona was resigned to tally the loss.
There was certainly more to take from the game, but still, the former UNC Asheville coach took the level of fight he saw from his team as a sign of good things to come. Now, he noted, it is about growing in the aftermath.
“Very easily, the boys could have crumbled,” Giordano said. “Very easily, they could have just sat down and just given up right away, especially going down 2-0. So, I couldn’t be more proud of them. … But now we got to learn, as a young group with veterans mixed in, it’s about learning. Winning is learning and learning how to win is going to be a big key to it.”
That level of desire is more than a significant portion of the puzzle according to Giordano, who noted that if his squad is able to keep up that intensity as the season progresses there is a bright future ahead of them.
“That’s maybe 60, 50% of the battle right there, just getting guys that believe in it and to have that drive and the desire behind it,” Giordano said. “We’ve got a wonderful group, unbelievable humans with unbelievable grit and belief in what we can do. And that fight is going to be something we have to continue no matter what the ups and the downs are, it’s just about controlling what we can … We got big things coming, and as a staff, we believe this group can do something special.”
St. Bonaventure’s Ethan Streeter (12) brings the ball upfield against Niagara. Streeter provided the assist on the Bonnies’ lone goal from open play against the Purple Eagles. (St. Bonaventure Athletics)
Overall, Giordano was pleased with how his debut at the head of the Bona bench went. His players followed the plan set out for them, and while they definitely wanted more out of the result considering how well they fought, he stated that no team ‘deserves’ anything more than what they go out and take on the field.
It is that hunger that he wants to drive his program forward.
“We stuck to the game plan on a lot of things, trying to be brave and dominant on the ball,” Giordano said. “Certainly, we want more out of it, but it’s not one where we can ever say we deserve more, because what you deserve is what you go and you take, but we need to want more, not just from this game, but in general as a program. We need to continue to want more. We need to continue to want to be elite and excellent as we go and make sure that we can really take on, not just these games at home, but the games on the road too, and control all the emotions behind them.”
Now, in terms of the offseason, it was a chaotic one according to Giordano as he and his coaching staff are not the only new faces in the program. Along with them came 10 new players to go along with the 19 returners. So, one of the key challenges Giordano had during his first preseason at the helm was to get his players to gel as quickly and as effectively as he can. A process that, based on the cohesion between the players on opening night, has gone well. But, he added, there is still work to be done.
“We’ve had a great pre-season in regards to coming together, the team bonding aspect, team belief side of it,” Giordano said. “So, there’s loads of work to do. We need to continue to up the fitness levels, up the understanding, up the intensity, up the pressing, everything. But there’s time for that. Right now, it’s just about us continuing to try and take everything we can and every day just be as good as we can be.”
But that is just what Giordano is expecting of his players on the field. Off the pitch, he has standards that he wants his players, and coaching staff for that matter, to uphold as well.
“We expect our guys, number one, to be good humans,” Giordano said. “They need to be the best humans possible. But outside of that, it’s about believing. This needs to be a professional environment, and that needs to come from the top. … It’s all about the little details and our foundation that we need to build up. If we build those little things up, we’ve got a solid base for many, many years to come.”
St. Bonaventure’s Dean Mercer (15) carries the ball through the midfield while being tailed by a Niagara defender. (St. Bonaventure Athletics)
Establishing a solid foundation that the program can grow upon has been the ultimate goal of Giordano in the early days of his tenure. Expectations and guidelines that he hopes can have the Bonnies competing with the best of the best.
He admitted he and his team have set lofty goals for themselves this season, but achieving those goals will require a certain level of focus and dedication that he wants to see exhibited in the day-to-day.
“By all means, we set our bigger goals: making sure we can compete in the A10 correctly, be in the A10 tournament, not just be a Cinderella, but actually earn our way there. But now that we’ve set them, it’s about day-to-day. … We break it down into session-by-session, day-by-day. How can we be the best version of ourselves every single day? Let that stack upon itself. And as we continue to stack, it just rolls from there.”
Giordano and the St. Bonaventure men’s soccer team will have their chance to pick up the first win of the season in their next game, an away affair on Aug. 24 at Bucknell, that is set for a 6 p.m. kickoff.
