Hokie ClubBLACKSBURG – In the nightcap of the first day of the Hilton Garden Inn Hokie Invitational, the Virginia Tech men’s soccer dropped a tough 3-1 result to SIU-Edwardsville.
The Cougars came out early and often, putting pressure on Hokies backline. After four SIUE efforts to test the defense, Kyle Renfro was forced to come up with sliding save to stop SIUE’s Christian Volesky as a got free on the left side.
Just under 15 minutes later, the Cougars took a 1-0 lead as Kevin Stoll took a run up through the middle of the Hokie defense and fired a low shot just inside the left post.
Under two minutes later, SIUE struck again as Jared Tejada found space on the right side chipped a ball to the far post over a surging Renfro.
Christrian Volesky pushed the SIUE advantage to 3-0 just over a minute later as slipped past the leftside of the Hokie defense went far post past Renfro.
With 31 minutes to go, Renfro was called upon again as he thwarted another Cougar 1-on-1 opportunity. 10 minutes later, Daniel Lauretano netted his first goal as a Hokie in the 69th minute. Captain David Fiorello sent a long ball from midfield to the top of the box, which the freshman ran onto and slid to left side past a diving Cougar keeper.
“I told the guys that they needed to be better in the second half, and they were, but we’ve struggled sorting out some issues throughout the preseason and it caused us problems tonight,” Virginia Tech head coach Mike Brizendine said. “I’m not pleased with this result, but one good thing is that we have another game on Sunday and we’re going to put all of our focus tomorrow into regrouping and preparing for a Richmond team that got a great result today.”
Tech closes out the tournament Sunday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. at Thompson Field against Richmond.