A win against a top-ranked opponent was the way the holiday weekend started for the Terrapin men’s soccer team, but it ended Monday with a scary finish.
Last night, the Terps had to clench their fists, grit their teeth and hold on in order to beat an unranked opponent.
In the Terps’ first game this weekend, they manhandled No. 10-ranked UCLA 4-1. In the second game, it looked as if the Terps were steaming forward on the same path against Louisville, but the stingy Cardinals made the Terps fight for a 2-1 victory.
“I think we took the foot off the accelerator and we sort of got into some bad habits and let them come into the game a little bit,” coach Sasho Cirovski said after the second game.
The Terps started against Louisville with two goals in the first half. The first came in the 11th minute when junior midfielder Stephen King sent the ball to the top of the box for sophomore forward Graham Zusi. While in traffic and falling to the ground, Zusi pushed the ball past Cardinal goalkeeper David Simolike who just stood frozen and watched the ball ripple the net.
The Terps’ next goal came in the 20th minute, when King found the ball in the box, but this time decided to shoot. After receiving a pass from sophomore midfielder Rich Costanzo, King sent the 15-yard shot home.
The two early goals gave the Terps total control, for the time being. Throughout most of the remainder of the game the Terps outplayed Louisville.
But in the 83rd minute, with the Terps holding a 20-4 shot advantage, Cardinal defender Ryan Meyer scored when he put a ball to the right of sophomore goalkeeper Chris Seitz.
From that point on the Cardinals took the new life and made the Terps fight for the win. At 2-1, the Cardinals played with more urgency but the Terps sent out several clears and eventually watched the clock expire to give them the narrow victory.
“We didn’t put a lot of pressure on their goalkeeper with quality shots and quality scoring opportunities,” Cirovski said. “We gave them a little belief there that they were still in the game with a 2-0 lead.”
Cirovski said one of the reasons for the Terps’ slight letdown late against Louisville was because of a draining performance just a day and a half prior against national rival UCLA.
The game against the Bruins was scheduled for Friday, but instead was moved to Saturday because of the remnants of Hurricane Ernesto.
Despite the postponement, 4,020 fans – the fifth-largest crowd in Ludwig field history – showed up and were treated to a performance that included four different Terp goal scorers.
The first goal came in the 25th minute. King placed a perfect through ball into the box to freshman forward Jason Herrick. After Herrick saw the ball in front of him, he cut back to his left, while the defender on him fell down on his stomach and was forced to watch Herrick skirt up the box on a breakaway and score.
“I just kind of tried to slip in behind the defender,” Herrick said. “The guy was kind of trying to hold me off and he fell over. Against Old Dominion I kind of messed one like that up so I made sure I put that in the net this time.”
There was some debate about whether the goal should have stood – the Bruins received a yellow card for arguing that Herrick pushed off on the defender.
The Terps’ next goal came just four minutes later when the reciprocal stat line of the first goal showed up in the box score. This time Herrick was the one who sent the ball into the box and King tapped the deflected ball into the goal and put the Terps ahead by two.
The third goal of the game came just after halftime and is by far one of the prettiest tallies of the Terps’ young season.
In the 47th minute, after Zusi sent a corner into the box, King retrieved the deflected ball in the top near corner and sent a cross to freshman midfielder Jeremy Hall on the other side of the box.
Hall then settled the ball with his chest and before the ball touched the ground, volleyed a high strike into the back of the net. Hall’s goal put the Terps up three goals.
The two teams swapped goals throughout the remainder of the game: UCLA on a header right in front of the net in the 60th minute and the Terps on a Zusi blast from the top of the box in the 74th minute as the Terps went on to eventually be three goals better than the Bruins.
Even though the Terps won both games through the holiday weekend, they were forced to play without the help of two of their best and most experienced players: junior midfielder Maurice Edu was suffering from back spasms and senior midfielder A.J. Godbolt felt sick prior to the game against UCLA.
Cirovski said they could have played if the games were later in the season, but he held them out for preventative measures.
Without two of their best players, getting the two positive results in the last few days is good news for the young Terps – even with the bumps of the second game.
“I am very pleased where we are right now,” said Saturday. “But like I told the team, this is early in the year and we certainly don’t want this to be the highlight of our season.”
Contact reporter Bryan Mann at bmanndbk@gmail.com.
