Three game losing streaks are no fun for any team, least of all a team as promising as the Hamline men’s soccer team. Losing 0-2 to both Macalester and St. Thomas and dropping a heartbreaker 0-1 to St. Olaf in overtime has the Pipers (7-4, 1-3 MIAC) much farther down in the MIAC standings than they expected at the beginning of the year.

“We’ve been playing regionally ranked teams recently,” said head coach Alex Morawiecki on the team’s losses to regionally ranked opponents Luther, Macalester and St. Thomas. “We felt we should have done better against St. Thomas and the others, but it’s not like we’ve been playing bad teams.”

The Pipers started off their season with a tough 1-2 loss against Luther, then reeled off seven straight victories, including a 1-0 victory over Concordia to begin their conference schedule. The Pipers’ winning streak was keyed by good defensive play and timely goals from up and down the roster.

“We had six shutouts in a row,” said sophomore goaltender Dean Isaacson. “Those six consecutive shutouts were huge to our record thus far.”

With 8-0 and 7-0 wins against Bethany Lutheran and Crown, respectively, the Pipers have shown off roster-wide scoring abilities, something that Isaacson wasn’t sure the team would have early in the season after the graduation of All-MIAC senior forward Abbai Habte.

“Our first-years have stepped up this year, scoring wise,” said Isaacson. “Last year, we would get it to Abbai and he’d do the dirty work. Now we have all these people who can score, we just have to get them the opportunity to score.”

The Hamline team has had a good year to date because the contributions from their younger players have supplemented strong seasons from the few upperclassmen on the team this year.

“We have been leaning a bit on [junior] Oscar Campbell and [senior] Jake Niemann,” said Morawiecki, “That said, we’re a young team and that can sometimes go by the wayside in terms of remembering where we are at compared to where we were just four years ago.”

Patrick Murray, a junior international exchange student playing with the Pipers this season, came off the bench in the win against Bethany Lutheran and scored two goals with his new team.

“I came off the bench and scored twice, so I was pretty happy,” said Murray. “It’s a little hard to get integrated into the team because I joined a little late but I’m settling in well.”

Scoring opportunities in general have been widely unbalanced in their three recent losses, with the Pipers putting just six shots on net in the last three games while their opponents have put twelve on net.

“Macalester beat us 2-0 in a pretty even game,” said Murray. “St. Olaf beat us 1-0 and that was also a pretty even game; these MIAC games are all pretty competitive.” 

With St. Mary’s up next on their schedule, the Pipers have a chance to make a quick move up the MIAC standings.

“We just have to play better and get ready for a hungry St. Mary’s team,” said Morawiecki. “We’re not happy with where we’re at right now, even though it’s been a good year for us thus far.”

The Pipers resume conference play at 3:30 p.m. this Saturday, Oct. 8 against St. Mary’s at Paterson Field.