By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — St. Bonaventure head coach Mick Giordano was noticeably emotional after his side’s 2-1 defeat to La Salle in its last home game of the season.
But his emotions were not solely connected to the defeat.
What he felt for more so was the program and the group of seniors that are set to leave the program after this season.
“You can see the tears and you can see the pain and the emotion and that says everything for this group and how close they are,” Giordano said. “I talked to the seniors a little bit at the end and just said, ‘when we do have our success next year, understand that the 10 of you helped lay the foundation and helped lay the groundwork, did all the dirty work to get us going.’ It’s cruel game, and sometimes the cards are dealt for you, sometimes they’re against us. And we felt that one tonight. … But at the end of it, we just have to continue to move forward and continue to realize we can do it. Thanks to this group, especially thanks to the senior class, we’ve seen we can do it.”
Giordano is closing in on the end of his first season in charge of the Bonnies and as much as he has done all he can to get tallies in the win column, his mission was always bigger than that. According to him, establishing a culture and a sound foundation to build upon in the coming years was just as critical.
“When you come into (a new team), there’s a few things that you want to really establish,” Giordano said. “We’re trying to establish a culture of competitiveness before anything else. The other thing we’re trying to establish is culture. … What that really means is you care about someone else. You care about everyone else more than you do yourself, and you invest your time into everyone else around you. That’s what we saw, and is why we have all that emotion. I couldn’t be happier, to say the least. We’re certainly disappointed in the result, but pleased with the way (the players) continue to buy into each other and really invest in one another.”
Pictured are the 10 seniors of the St. Bonaventure men’s soccer team during their Senior Day festivities. (From left to right), Hugo Berville, Dean Mercer, Seth Hammond, Ricardo Rittersberger Galan, Ethan Streeter, Jesper van Halderen, Gabriel Addo, Zach McBennett, Avery Dreasky and Nicolas Pucci were all honored prior to their game against La Salle on Oct. 25. (St. Bonaventure Athletics)
It was that competitiveness and drive that stuck out to Giordano in his side’s loss to La Salle. Both teams spared no energy in the first half, chasing down every long and loose ball with intent. Yet there was nothing to split the Bonnies and Explorers at the break.
It was the visitors who made the initial breakthrough in the 54th minute after Ismael Deme curled a low effort past the outstretched hands of Bona goalkeeper Felix Schöne. The hosts managed to find an equalizer through Avery Dreasky on a corner swung in by Seth Hammond. Unfortunately, the Bonnies were dealt the knockout punch with under seven minutes to play by Julius de Vries.
“Right at the death of the first half we created two really good chances and didn’t punch the ball in the back of the net,” Giordano said. “In the second half we created three really good chances and didn’t punch the ball in the back of the net. And unfortunately, it’s a game of small margins. Especially tonight, it was about small margins. (La Salle) got the margins correct at the end of the day with two moments, we came up with one. But the way (our players) were able to try and execute everything we talked about, I’m really pleased with that.”
The Bonnies had a number of great opportunities that were either a pass or a finishing touch away from possibly changing the entire game. And while seeing that many chances come and go without being taken may damage a team’s confidence, it seemed to do the opposite for Bona.
“It’s really easy to get down on yourself and have negative self-talk when things aren’t going your way, when you miss a chance, miss a pass, everything,” Giordano said. “We continue to talk about resiliency and having that kind of emotional resiliency to keep pushing through. … Whatever that situation might be, you have to go face it. So, yeah I’m very happy that they had no quit again. They kept fighting to the very end. They gave us everything.”
St. Bonaventure’s Benjamin Haynes (3) looks to send a pass upfield against La Salle. (Spencer Bates)
But while the season at home is now finished, the job of Giordano, his staff and the entire Bona team is not over. In fact, one of their biggest tests is still yet to come. While they may be on the outside of the A10 playoff picture looking in, if the program is going to continue on an upward trajectory, Giordano noted, it has to show that it is willing to show up even when they have been knocked down.
“If we really want to talk about building a program and building a competitive program, it starts with approaching the next week correctly,” Giordano said. “It’s about making sure that we don’t go down to Fordham just to show up because we have to. It’s about going and trying to take three points. We’ve seen numerous times this year that we’re good enough to compete with the best of the best. We just have to find that consistency. So, it needs to be a step forward in our process.”
St. Bonaventure will play its final game of the 2025 season at Fordham on Nov. 1 at 5 p.m.
