As the seconds ticked down on Virtue Field’s scoreboard Saturday Nov. 6, it marked the ends of both the men’s soccer America East quarterfinal game and their entire 2013 season.

The final minutes of the quarterfinal game resulted in a 5-1 loss for the No. 4 ranked Catamounts as they faced off against the No. 5-seeded University of Albany Great Danes.

“They [Albany] played a really good game, they did every- thing right, they executed and finished their chances,” Vermont head coach Jesse Cormier said in an interview with the Burlington Free Press.

The Great Danes took an early 2-0 lead just over 16 minutes into the first half to start the momentum for what would be their quarterfinal win.

The goals came from junior mid-fielder Pomare Te Anau, who scored two himself, and one from senior defender Thomas Manz.

“Any time you can get a couple of goals early and really give yourself a cushion, it’s a positive, especially in the playoffs,” Albany head coach Trevor Gorman said

This isn’t the first time the Catamounts and the Great Danes have faced off against each other.

Earlier this season, Vermont hosted Albany Oct. 19, the Catamounts came out with a 2-1 victory for the men in green and gold.

“We came up here a couple of weeks ago and thought we did okay but didn’t really play our best game,” Gorman said.

Albany continued their scoring with an accidental goal off of a free kick by Te Anau.

In the unlucky attempt by the Vermont defenders to protect the goal from Ta Anau’s kick, the shot was deflected off one of the heads of a Vermont defender and ended up being scored in Vermont’s own net.

Albany lead the match 5-0 until the 69th minute of play. Vermont senior defender Beau Johnson completed a pass from first-year forward Brian Wright to ruin the Great Danes chances of a shutout.

“We always felt if we could take care of that we could get chances going our way on the other end and obviously it worked out very well for us,” said Gorman.

Vermont goaltenders senior Conor Leland and junior Ryan Bailey combined to save two stops in the loss to Albany.

“I thought we did a really good job of playing quality soccer in the first half,” Cormier said. 12