ROCHESTER, NY - The Bard College men's soccer team fought to a draw with RIT in a Liberty League match in Rochester on Saturday afternoon.
Bard (5-1-2) and RIT (3-1-4) battled early before the Raptors took a 1-0 lead when
Mateo Betelu scored his first career goal in the 21st minute. Defender
James Bird played a long, cross-field pass to Betelu who beat a pair of defenders and finished with a hard, low shot to the far post. RIT looked to equalize late in the half but Raptors goalkeeper
Gavin Hersey made a pair of saves in the 37th and 39th minutes to keep Bard ahead going into the second half.
RIT tied the game in the 62nd minute, but the Raptors answered back 10 minutes later with a goal by sophomore forward
Sam Gerber. Junior midfielder
Cole Ewalt picked off a pass from the RIT goalkeeper and dribbled in on goal before squaring it to Gerber for the sophomore's sixth goal of the season. The Tigers struck back in the 79th minute and both teams fought to get a winner late in the game but neither team could break through and the match ended in a 2-2 draw.
The draw was a second straight result for the Raptors, having tied Vassar also on the road on Wednesday afternoon, and the first time that Bard has earned a pair of results in conference play since joining the Liberty League in 2011.
Bard will host Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for the team's Kick It Pink game - a fundraiser for breast cancer awareness and research - on Ferrari Field next Wednesday at 7 p.m.
