Owls Suffer First Conference Loss of the Season at Fitchburg

WESTFIELD, Mass. – Westfield State first-year midfielder Cooper Garbiel-Achorn (Holyoke, Mass.) scored the first goal of his collegiate career, but the Owls dropped a 3-1 match against Fitchburg State in a Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference game on the road Friday night.

The Owls suffer their first conference game of the season, falling to 2-1-2 in the league and 5-6-4 overall. The Falcons improve to 7-6-2 on the year and 2-2-1 in the MASCAC.

Justin Job (Worcester, Mass.) scored twice for Fitchburg, increasing the Falcons lead after Ajani Guzman (Leominster, Mass.) tallied the first goal of the game just five minutes into the match.

Job doubled the Falcons lead in the closing minutes of the first half, collecting an unassisted goal for his fourth marker of the year, putting Fitchburg up 2-0 entering the halftime break.

The Falcons tacked on a third goal in the second half as Job deposited his second of the evening on a pass from Julian Correa-Estrada (Nashua, N.H.) to put the game out of reach.

Garbiel-Achorn got the Owls in the scoring column with 13:45 left in the game, possessing a deflected pass where he then fired a left-footed shot to the left post, past the diving Alexander Carvalho (North Providence, R.I.) and into the back of the net for his first collegiate goal.

Fitchburg outshot Westfield by a slim 12-11 margin with Luke Theroux (Chicopee, Mass.) generating three saves. Carvalho (W, 3-2-1) made four saves for the Falcons. A total of eight yellow cards and one red card were issued in the match.

Westfield State will look to regroup in their next match as the Owls return home to face Vermont State Castleton in a non-conference game from Alumni Field on Tuesday at 4:00 P.M.