Box Score New Paltz, NY – The game swung in the matter of 23 minutes between the State University of New York at New Paltz (3-3) and Vassar College (3-2) Wednesday.
 
The Hawks controlled the first 45 minutes of action and capitalized with two goals to none at the halftime break, but the Brewers made adjustments and netted three straight goals at the 53^rd, 58^th and 76^th minutes to propel a 3-2 victory.
 
"We knew the game plan. They were going to try and play their target forward and lay off, and play balls through," said SUNY New Paltz coach Kyle Clancy. "We talked a lot about the cover and about our [midfielders] tracking. Our guys did a better job of that in the first half."
 
The Hawks started the game strong, building play in the final third and getting dangerous crosses into the box, and finally put away one of those balls in the seventh minute.
 
Ryan Martinez ran on to a well-played ball down the right flank, cut it back and sent a cross toward the weak side of the 18-yard box, which found the foot of Luke Dole. Dole's touch lofted back towards the middle where Kevin Doorley was hustling in and hammered home his second goal of the year to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead.
 
"Defensively, work was good as a unit, we had better pressure on the ball and we were on the ball a lot more," Clancy said. "That helped us create more chances, and we weren't really letting them get in behind us."
 
Doorley helped SUNY New Paltz grow its lead to two 20 minutes later, playing a nicely placed corner into the box that found the head of Aleco Podias, who beat Brewers goalkeeper Matt Macelino (four saves) for the score.
 
The Hawks held all the momentum at the break, but it quickly shifted as the second half whistle sounded.
 
"We were just terrible in the first half," said Vassar coach Andy Jennings. "The attitude was just very poor, very unusual for the attitude for this team to be bad, but it was just flat. Nobody was taking responsibility. Nobody knew how to control the ball. You can see in the second half, the first 20 minutes especially, we played some awesome stuff with some great intensity."
 
The Brewers put pressure on SUNY New Paltz's defense and forced Hawks goalkeeper John Guzzo (seven saves) to make three straight stops within the first 15 minutes.
 
Vassar broke through after Mattie Mrlik's strike off a cross from Jose Novas. Mrlik added another five minutes later, netting his fourth goal of the season just outside the box.
 
Tyler Gilmore then capped off the run after getting a head on a corner kick that ricocheted off a Brewer until it found the foot of Herik Olsson, who tallied the go-ahead score.
 
"New Paltz is a very good team… They took advantage of [our flat start] and played really well," Jennings said. "We were probably just a little bit shell-shocked and in the second half we came at them and changed it up.
 
"It was definitely a game of two halves. Credit to New Paltz for their first half and credit to us for our second half."
 
The Hawks started pressing with time winding down and created opportunities within Vassar's final third but could not put away the equalizer.
 
The Brewers held the advantage on shots (16-9) and the slight edge in corners (3-2).
 
"They went and changed their system to a 4-3-3 and [we need to be] able to pick up on that a bit quicker and deal with the style that they are playing," Clancy said. "When they started playing more direct to the forwards and laying off, finding ways to position ourselves to better prevent that. If that is winning the first one, or the second, but we can't let them win the first, second and the third and that stuff was happening in the box too. It was just a little uncharacteristic of our guys too. I know we'll learn from it and we'll finish the game off next time."
 
The loss ended a three-game winning streak for SUNY New Paltz, which will look to get back over .500 in its next outing at home on Saturday against King's College. The game is set for 1 p.m. Visit nphawks.com for live stats and follow @nphawks on Twitter for updates and highlights.