BLACKSBURG, Va. (Sept. 28, 2021) –  Squaring off against their fourth nationally ranked opponent of the season, the ETSU men’s soccer team gave up a pair of goals second-half as the Buccaneers fell to No. 11 Virginia Tech 2-0 Tuesday night at Thompson Field.

RECORDS

• With the loss, ETSU dropped 2-4-2 midway through the season, while Virginia Tech won its third straight match, improving to 6-1-2.
• Redshirt senior goalkeeper, Josh Perryman (Sheffield, England) grabbed his eighth start in nine games this season. He tallied five saves and fell to 2-4-2 on the year.

SCORING SUMMARY

• Virginia Tech scored the opening goal in the 55th minute from a cross sent on by Kyle McDowell. Conor Pugh found the pass and his shot trickled into the bottom right corner, marking his second goal of the campaign.
• The Hokies’ second goal came 10 minutes later as Pugh sent in a low driven cross to Nick Blacklock, who placed his shot past Perryman into the bottom left corner.

MATCH SUMMARY

It was a slow start for both teams as the first shot on target did not come until the 13th minute by Hokies Jacob Labovitz. The shot was straight at Perryman, who was able to make his first save of the match.

The Buccaneers started to find their rhythm in the 30th minute when Carlos Portas (Barcelona, Spain) recorded the first shot for the Bucs.

Just three minutes later when a handball was called right outside the box, Tarik Pannholzer (Flensburg, Germany) stepped up to take the free kick and aimed for the top right corner of goal. The shot was saved by Ben Martino for his first of the night.

Portas attempted his second shot in the closing minutes of the first half and forced Martino to make an impressive save, keeping it scoreless heading into the break.

Despite three shots and heavy pressure early in the second half by the Bucs, the Hokies opened the scoring as they found the back of the net twice within the opening 20 minutes of stanza.

Pannholzer, the Bucs’ leading scorer, took a shot off a free kick in the 69th minute, but sent the shot high. ETSU’s final scoring opportunity of the night came by way of a shot from Rayhan Carlson Du-Toit (Auckland, New Zealand), who sent the shot away from the Hokie keeper and was off target.

Dominic Foster (London, England) was issued a red card in the 76th minute, forcing the Buccaneers to play a man down for the remainder of the game.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS

• The two teams could not be split apart in the first half as each team had three shots. The Bucs ended the half with a pair of shots on goal while the Hokies only tallied one.
• For the game, ETSU was out-shot, 12-10, with seven VT shots coming on target and four by the Bucs.
• Pannholzer tallied a game-high three shots, giving him 21 on the season.
• The Buccaneers registered a season-high 13 fouls on the night.
• ETSU had five corner kicks, compared to seven by Virginia Tech.

UP NEXT

The Bucs return home to Summers-Taylor Stadium on Saturday in a conference showdown against Wofford. Kickoff is slated for 8 p.m.

For more information on Buccaneer Men’s Soccer, visit ETSUBucs.com and click on the men’s soccer page.