Plattsburgh, NY – Playing a man down for the final 19-plus minutes, the Clarkson University Men's Soccer team came up short of a comeback attempt against Plattsburgh State, falling 2-0 to the Cardinals Saturday night.

The Golden Knights saw their record evened at 3-3 on the season, while Plattsburgh improved to 5-2. Clarkson will look to get back on the winning track in a few days, when the squad will enjoy its first home game of the season against SUNY Canton on Tuesday evening.

Both teams had their chances in a fast-paced game that saw the field reversed quickly, but the physicality of the contest certainly wore both teams down. That became more evident in the second half, when the two teams combined for six cards.

Clarkson had dodged a couple of close calls against the Cardinals in the first half, but the Knights' luck ran out in an odd way late in the first half. Kyle Pfaff carried the ball down along the end line and then sent a crossing pass through the middle. Though most similar plays in the first half had been easily cleared away, the Pfaff pass somehow avoided the defenders, along with a few Plattsburgh players, to get to the foot of Sean Maruscsak, who nailed the groundball cross hard into the top corner for a 1-0 Cardinals lead at 40:19.

The second half continued the game's back and forth nature, though the Cardinals chances for scores came more often, as Ian Roeloffs was called upon to make several tough stops for Clarkson. The job for Roeloffs and the Clarkson defense became that much more difficult at the 70:28 mark, when freshman Brandon Bahr was booked for his second yellow card in a stretch of 10 minutes, fouling a player near the sideline. That put the Knights down a player for the remainder of the game, and though Clarkson was able to keep up its same pace, it needed to take more chances to tie the game up. With less than two minutes to go, Clarkson's Mack Walton took a corner kick and the Knights had the rest of the team up in the box hoping to knock in the equalizer. However, a header by Plattsburgh quickly cleared things up in the Cardinals' defensive end, and Nicholas Laurent carried the ball down the field against just one defender. When Kyle Pfaff caught up with his teammate, he collected a pass and had a one-on-one, but chose to tap the ball back over to Laurent, who was able to outmaneuver the late arriving defense of Clarkson, hitting a low grounder beyond Roeloffs' outstretched hands into the left corner of the goal at 88:25.

Plattsburgh finished with a 15-8 edge in shots and a 10-7 lead in corner kick chances. Roeloffs played well in the Clarkson frame, making seven stops, while Patrick Feeley made three saves for the Cardinals.