WINONA, Minn. — For the past two games,
Juamaine Venter (Rochester, Minn.) has helped the Saint Mary’s University men’s soccer team have the last laugh, as the Cardinal junior has netted the game-winning goal in the Cardinals’ back-to-back wins over Saint John’s and UW-Platteville.
Venter had the last laugh against Tuesday evening — unfortunately this time around, it was Juamaine’s older brother, Augsburg goalkeeper Pascaul Venter doing the laughing, as the senior stopped every SMU shot he faced in leading the Auggies to a 2-0 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference victory at Ochrymowycz Field.
“We came out a little flat to start the game and (Augsburg) took it to us,” said SMU coach Chris Dembiec, whose team gave up a goal in the game’s 11th minute and was outshot 9-2 in the opening 45 minutes in falling behind 1-0 at the break. “I thought we played a much better second half, but (Pascaul Venter) made a big save midway through the half and they scored on a nice free kick play and that was the ball game.
“We’ve said all season long that it’s important for us to not only create good scoring chances, but also capitalize on them. We had some great chances tonight, we just weren’t able to put any of them away.”
Alex Hildebrandt got the Auggies on the board with his fourth of the season, corralling a rebound after SMU goalkeeper Jon Szafranski (Barrington, Ill.) made a diving save on a shot by Matt Bowman and putting into the open net.
Van Hong pushed the Auggie lead to 2-0 22 minutes into the second half, as he headed in free kick off the foot of Peter Osborn.
Szafranski was busy in the Cardinal goal, finishing with 11 saves in his final collegiate home game. Pascaul Venter, meanwhile, stopped all three SMU shots — including a diving stop on a shot by Ryan Rademacher (La Crosse, Wis.) that was labeled for the upper right corner.
“It’s not quite the ending we wanted to write for our (four) seniors,” admitted Dembiec, who watched Szafranski, Cristian Reyes (Goshen, Ind.), Jermaine Walker (Evanston, Ill.) and Lucas Volini (Hoffman Estates, Ill.) play their final home games Tuesday. “They have all had great careers here at Saint Mary’s and we are going to miss their presence next year.”
The foursome, along with the rest of the Cardinal squad, still have one game remaining, as SMU (1-7-1 MIAC, 6-9-2 overall) heads to St. Paul, Minn., Saturday to take on St. Thomas in a 1 p.m. contest.