Three games, two losses and one tie. Things have been tough for the Judges after losing to Wentworth last Thursday (1-0) and fighting Clark to a tie on Saturday (0-0) leading up to Wednesday nights effort on the road against the WPI Engineers.

Last year, Brandeis defeated WPI 4-1;

however, things have changed this year and Ben Premo 09 was aware of this when asked about them last Saturday. We beat them 4-1 last year, but as you can see, we beat Wentworth 6-1 last year so that doesnt really matterWe just got to come out of the gates ready to play, were coming out lackidasical and not anticipating balls. We just need to come out.

Come out the Judges did, but unfortunately they could not withstand the onslaught by a strong WPI squad and fell 4-2 in front of a crowd of 150. Brandeis got the scoring started seven minutes into action as Billy Murphy 10, returning to the line-up from injury, scored on a feed from Mike Snyder 07. However, WPI tied it up in the 21st minute of the first half and, barely over a minute into the second, took a 2-1 lead on a tally by Chris Lyons 09. Evan Duval 08 was able to tie it up three minutes later but Timothy Lontz 08 scored the game-winner for the Engineers in 70th minute. A breakaway goal fourteen minutes later gave WPI the 4-2 win.

In a tight affair, WPI barely outshot the Judges 11-10 with each team having 4 corner kicks. Brandeis goalie Taylor Bracken 10 and WPI keeper Brian Catalano 07 each had 2 saves. This match, though hard fought and against an undefeated foe, is a step backwards for the Judges, especially after the tough effort put together against Clark.

Last weekend, the Judges showed that they were not down as they fought ninth-ranked Clark University to a 0-0 draw.

Clark had some chances: Forward David Blum 08 had 5 shots in the game, including two in overtime. Rookie goalie Taylor Bracken 10 was able to stop them and four other shots to finish with 6 saves. Brandeis out-shot Clark 19-11 for the game (15-7 in regulation time) and Duval had some nice scoring opportunities, including a point-blank shot in the 105th minute of play. Unfortunately, Clark goalie Matt Talbot 07 stopped the shot and prevented any follow-up opportunities from happening. Talbot had 7 saves and the game ended in a tie.

Brandeis head coach Mike Coven was very pleased with the turnaround following the Wentworth defeat. It was great. They came back, they played very, very well. I thought this was our best performance of the season, against the number 9-ranked team in New England. I think we dominated play, controlled possession, created some great opportunities to score. The only thing we have to do now is score. We havent scored a lot of goals this year, we've got to get a little hungrier in the box, we've got to start scoring. But we did everything, Im very, very pleased, it was the best effort of the year. And were missing three of our best players: Tyler Morril, freshman back, sustained a concussion, hasnt played in the last two games. Yuval Ezar '07, maybe our best player, he has a sprained ankle and Billy Murphy '10 has a pulled quad so were missing three very important ingredients and some of the guys who havent played too much this year like Alex Ball '09 and Mike Snyder '07, I think they stepped it up and played very, very well.”

In their first home match of the season, the Judges experienced a colossal disappointment, falling to the Wentworth Leopards 1-0. Last year, Brandeis used Premos hat trick to coast to a 6-1 victory;

this time around, the Leopards were ready for him.

He scored three goals against them last year;

he had two guys holding him, all game. They were definitely keying on him, he got away from them today. I think he had difficulty getting away from defenders against Wentworth but definitely got away today and had some opportunities to score;

unfortunately, that didnt happen, Coach Coven explained.

The lone goal came on a free kick from the feet of Wentworth forward Dan Marra 07, set up by teammates Joe Carroll 07 and Matt Martins 09. Brandeis applied the pressure, out-shooting Wentworth 22-9 with 11 shots in each half. Premo nearly tied it up barely a minute after the Wentworth goal, but Wentworths defense stopped that and goal keeper Mike Gregory 10 made 6 saves to preserve the 1-0 win for Wentworth.

Coach Coven summed up his opinion about the game: Very disappointing. Theyre an ok team but it was our first home game and we out-shot them 24-8 [actually 22-9] and we gave up a bad goal, we made a bad mistake, we played horribly for part of the game. The last 30 minutes of the game, we played very well, we just didnt score and thats been our Achilles heel the last few games, were not scoring goals. Were defending great, were not scoring goals.

The team is now 1-2-2 following Wednesdays loss and will look to rebound with a home match tonight against Albertus Magnus before hitting the road next Wednesday to take on Wheaton College.