The Seton Hall men's soccer team continued their losing ways on Wednesday evening as they fell to No. 25 West Virginia Mountaineers 2-0.
The Pirates (4-10-2, 0-6) have now lost seven straight matches and are winless in the Big East this season.
Seton Hall has not recorded a Big East victory since October 2, 2010 when they trampled Pittsburgh by four goals.
West Virginia (8-6-1, 5-3) came into the game as the No. 4 team in the Blue Division and move up to 18 points overall in conference with their win over the Hall.
The Mountaineers are now tied with Connecticut for third place.
The match's first scoring opportunity came in the 21st minute when West Virginia's Andy Bevin nearly scored after tip-toeing around his defender and putting a shot on goal from about 15 yards out.
Sophomore keeper Anthony Reichwaldt, starting his sixth game of the season, made the diving stop to temporarily keep the match scoreless.
Reichwaldt made four saves in the match and allowed two goals.
In the 42nd minute, Travis Pittman converted a penalty kick for the Mountaineers after sophomore Christian Battistesa attempted to block a cross in the box and instead touched it with his hand.
Pittman stepped up and slid the ball into the bottom, right corner of the net for his first goal of the season.
According to Seton Hall coach Manny Schellscheidt, the match was pretty evenly played until the unfortunate gaffe from Battistesa.
"We didn't have any chances, they didn't have any chances, and now out of the blue there is a penalty," Schellscheidt said. "That makes a difference in terms of how you move on from there because they are now one goal up."
The Pirates fired eight shots in the match, only one of which was on goal. West Virginia faced six of the Pirates' eight shots in the second half, however all of them were from at least 25 yards away from goal.
West Virginia sealed the match in the 61st minute when Andy Bevin scored his team leading eighth goal of the season to push the Mountaineer lead to 2-0.
Jay Williams fed a through ball to Bevin, who was making a horizontal run, just outside the penalty area.
Bevin split two Pirate defenders and found himself one-on-one with the keeper, where he calmly tucked it into the bottom left of goal to sink the Pirates.
Following the loss, coach Schellscheidt commented on his team's disappointing performances both in the match and on the season overall but noted that the pressure is now off with just three games to play.
As far as the match itself, Schellscheidt referred to the officiating as being somewhat of a distraction.
"They are a physical team, but I'm a bit disappointed in the officiating," said Schellscheidt, referring to several scuffles between the two teams in the last 20 minutes of play. "Losing wears on you, it really does. The referee had no control of the game, but then again we always say that the referee cannot score goals for you."
The Pirates will play their final home game of the season this Saturday, Oct. 29 when No. 5 Connecticut comes to Owen T. Carroll Field. Kick-off is set for 7 p.m.
John Lopiano can be reached at john.lopiano@student.shu.edu
