POUGHKEEPSIE, New York – Connor Preece knocked home the game winning goal just two minutes into the first overtime period and gave the Marist men’s soccer team a sudden 2-1 victory over the Fairfield Stags, Saturday night at Tenney Stadium.

A corner kick from Steven Arraiano led to a goal mouth scramble in which the ball was kicked around multiple times before it found the foot of Preece.

Preece found space on the opposite side of goal with only a lunging keeper between him and goal. Preece struck it confidently into the back of the twine and secured the win, extending the Red Foxes unbeaten record in conference.

With the win Marist men’s soccer is now 6-5-0 overall and 4-0-1 in Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference play. The loss moves Fairfield back to 3-4-4 overall and 2-2-0 in conference action.

An own goal in the first half gave the Red Foxes an early lead. Brandon Curtis pressured a back pass that was miss-kicked by a Stags defender. The Fairfield goalkeeper who was off balance and out of the net couldn’t recover in time as the ball rolled past the post and into the goal.

The Stags didn’t waiver as they pressured the Red Foxes back into their own end for most of the first half. In the 27^th minute a nice run up the righ side from Fairfield’s Steven Valente led to a cross in front to Kevin Byrne. Byrne took a well-placed shot that leveled the game and kept it there for the remainder of regulation.

A chippy game throughout led to a straight red card for one of Fairfield’s players in the 70^th minute and the Stags played down a man for the remainder.

The Red Foxes had nine shots in the game to the Stag’s 13. Preece and Kevin Kappock each had two shots for Marist, both of Preece’s shots were on goal. Both Mark Rajovic, in pursuit of a program record tying shutout, and Fairfield’s goalkeeper Matt Turner made three saves in goal.

The Red Foxes head out on the road to take on Iona next on Wednesday, October 14^th. Kick-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. 

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