Spartans defeat men’s soccer team 7-0

By: Hunter McIntyre

Sports Editor

The Vikings struggled in their last home game of the season as they couldn’t find an answer to the Cayuga Community College Spartans.

All second-year players were honored prior to kickoff.

It was going to be a tough matchup for the Vikings from the start since the Spartans had only lost two games all season.

Both teams came out strong but Cayuga got on the board fast and early. Capitalizing on their speed and ability to clean up second shots and chances.  

With the Vikings down at halftime, one audience member said, “I just can’t believe the speed of some of the Spartans’ players. Our guys are giving great effort but I’m pretty sure these guys are one of the top teams in the area so I’m just glad our players are keeping up the intensity.”

Another audience member added, “Yeah I’m really proud of our team. These guys are crazy good and were still attacking the ball which is showing our toughness and integrity. Even though these guys are relentless we don’t appear to slow down either which is good.”

The Vikings eventually lost the game 7-0.

Head Coach Travis Cooke said after the game, “I thought for stretches we played with them. We held them off but got overpowered. We just got outclassed by the other team.”

He also said, “ I think we can improve our team psychology. When we go down by one or two we need to stay like the score is zero to zero and avoid that drop off psychologically which isn’t the most encouraging thing but it’s kinda natural in all sports. As teams go down morale also goes down.”

He then said, “ We’re looking forward to the playoffs and we have a ton of respect for [Cayuga]. They’re definitely one of the top teams in the country. So our league, we have the national champion in our league and Herkimer is probably gonna end up playing these guys to represent our league. We’ve got nothing but respect for these guys. You can see we’re not a bad team and we just got beat a very good team.”

HVCC men’s soccer looks to bounce back and have success in the playoffs.