After two games away from home, Point Park men’s soccer made its way back to Highmark Stadium for homecoming weekend in a Mountain East Conference matchup against Frostburg State on Saturday, Sept. 27, which the Pioneers won, 2-1.
“We all love to be in Highmark, it’s our home, and we obviously work hard here every day,” captain Fridolin Gerfrorer said. “There’s a little bit of extra pride to playing at home. It’s always a really great feeling to play at home.”
This game was a story of comebacks and redemption. The Pioneers’ last matchup against Frostburg State was last year and ended in a loss 1-0.
“We’ve been waiting for this game because last year it was also a turf game at home,” Pioneer Cheroky Briard said. “We knew before going in that it’d be a fight.”
As proven by the yellow cards administered throughout the game, it was as stated — a fight. Officials issued seven yellow cards, five to Frostburg and two to Point Park, with only one issued in the first period.
“In the end, it wasn’t even football anymore, it’s a fight,” Briard said.
The Pioneers were down after the first goal went to Frostburg State’s Abdur-Rahman Neama from half-field in the 39th minute. Gerfrorer made Point Park’s first goal in the 54th minute with an assist by Guy Lehrer.
“It’s always good to score the first goal, but this time we were actually behind a goal, so it was just half of the job done,” Gerfrorer said. “It definitely felt good to get the goal and get our hopes up.”
The final goal of the game came from transfer Lorenzo Grispello with four minutes until the end of the matchup at large. This goal marked Grispello’s first of the season and as a Pioneer.
“I’m very happy with the goal,” Grispello said, “I’m very excited. I hope it’s the first of a lot of goals.”
The game ended in a win to the Pioneers which put their record at 4-3 overall and 4-2 in the MEC. The Bobcats fell to 2-4-1 overall and 2-3 in the MEC.
“I would say one of our strengths was being able to fight from being one goal down,” Gerfrorer said. “That shows great character, and we’ve proven that we can win games late in the last game.”
In the game on Wednesday, Sept. 24, the Pioneers came back in the last six minutes with two goals, one in the 84th minute and the other in the 89th. The latter score came 15 seconds from the end of the game.
“Now, we’ve proven that we can come back from being down,” Gerfrorer said. “That’s really important, and a key takeaway for us for the future to be able to overcome adversity and work together.”
Point Park will travel for the next two games. The Pioneers kick off October with an MEC matchup against Davis & Elkins on Wednesday, Oct. 1 at 4 p.m., and on Sunday, Oct. 5, Point Park is set to travel to Kentucky to play against Thomas More University at 2 p.m.
