On Friday, Sept. 29, Villanova’s men’s soccer team fell to UConn, 1-0, bringing its record to 1-4-3 and 1-2-0 in Big East play.

With rainy conditions during Friday’s match, the Wildcats struggled to find the back of the net.

“It was pouring,” head coach Tom Carlin said. “It certainly made the game sloppier than it would have otherwise been. Unfortunately, we gave one up just before halftime and we weren’t able to get it back.”

The matchup also proved to be highly physical, as a total of five yellow cards were given out, with three of them going to Wildcats.

Graduate defender Gray Ricca, freshman midfielder Mikhail Zaretser and junior forward Vincent Petrera were all carded at various points of the match.

As for play, both teams had a chance in the final third, recording 10 shots on net for bothe the Wildcats and Huskies. In the first half, both teams recorded 10 shots.

However, it was the Huskies who had the breakthrough. UConn scored what would be the only goal of the game two minutes before halftime, when freshman defender Kieran Chandler found the back of the net.

“It was just a broken play,” Carlin said. “It was tough because I thought we had three or four high-quality chances just before that which obviously could have been huge in these kinds of conditions.”

While the Wildcats continued to struggle with capitalizing on their chances, Carlin was still pleased with his team’s efforts and work ethic.

“Our possessions were better in the second half, and we created some chances there at the end,” Carlin said. “We could have been a little more aggressive and we didn’t have as much quality as we would have liked in the final third, to finish a couple of those chances. We battled. It just wasn’t enough.”

The Wildcats will be back on home turf for a matchup with Seton Hall on Saturday, Oct. 7. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m.