Through its first three periods of the season, the Terrapins men’s soccer team outshot its opponents and dominated time of possession. But they had trouble finishing around the net.
In their season opener against No. 4 Notre Dame on Friday night, the No. 13 Terps had 22 shots — four on goal — but settled for a scoreless draw after 110 minutes. And two days later against St. John’s, midfielder Amar Sejdic’s ninth-minute strike was the only one of six shots on goal to find the back of the net in the opening 45 minutes.
But early in the second half against the Red Storm, coach Sasho Cirovski’s team broke the drought, scoring three goals in a five-minute span. The offensive onslaught proved too much for St. John’s to overcome and helped the Terps (1-0-1) cruise to a 4-0 victory in Bloomington, Indiana.
“There was just more urgency and more quality by all of the five or six players,” Cirovski said of the team’s second-half performance. “And as a result, it led to some very nice goals.”
While Sejdic was ineligible for the Terps’ first two preseason games, Cirovski said earlier in the week that the 5-foot-10 midfielder could play in the season opener. Sejdic started against the Fighting Irish and the Red Storm (0-2).
He continued to contribute after his early goal and scored again in the 51st minute to start the three-goal barrage. After taking a pass from midfielder Jake Areman, the freshman easily finished past goalkeeper Andrew Withers.
“Coming in as a freshman, not many people expect them to be the one to put the team up on the scoreboard,” Sejdic said. “I’m looking forward to having a lot more of those moments throughout the year, so we’ll see how it goes.”
Less than a minute later, Areman scored his first goal of the year, and highly touted freshman forward Sebastian Elney scored his first career goal in the 56th minute.
“When we went into the locker room, we talked about how we just had to put the finishing touch on and put them away,” Areman said. “We did a good job of that, obviously. We came flying out of the gate in the second half.”
The Terps continued to push the ball upfield — they finished with 13 shots on goal and 31 total attempts — but were unable to build on the lead. Nevertheless, the Red Storm managed only eight shots and rarely challenged the Terps backline.
Though redshirt junior Cody Niedermeier started and made three saves in the Terps’ shutout win over the Fighting Irish on Friday, Cirovski elected to start freshman Dayne St. Clair on Sunday. St. Clair saved all four Red Storm attempts.
“We have two good goalkeepers with very little college experience, and we want to give them some early experience in the early part of the season,” Cirovski said. “Cody had a great game on Friday and Dayne had a great game today, so that’s good for them both get a good start to their college careers.”
Cirovski was pleased with his team’s offensive display against St. John’s, but the Terps are already looking forward to their home opener Friday night against No. 1 UCLA.
“First Friday [at home], Maryland/UCLA, are you kidding?” Cirovski said with a laugh. “It’s going to be a fantastic event. It will certainly be two of the top teams in the country with some of the top young players in this country playing each other.”
