BALTIMORE — Earlier this week, Maryland men’s soccer coach Sasho Cirovski said his squad’s visit to UMBC was an opportunity to expose players to “different teams from different conferences … in different settings.”
But despite an unfamiliar environment in Tuesday’s game, the contest unfolded similarly to the Terps’ Friday contest at Michigan State.
Maryland outplayed UMBC for much of the game but settled for a 1-1 draw after a number of missed chances.
“None of us are happy and none of us should be happy with the way we performed,” defender George Campbell said. “We took a big step back.”
Campbell was particularly unhappy with the result because he was on the 2014 team that UMBC knocked out of the NCAA tournament.
The high stakes and rivalry between the local teams was apparent by the record-setting 3,766 announced attendance at Retriever Soccer Park.
After the Terps took a 1-0 leas in the 55th minute, defender Miles Stray faced the bleachers and pulled the front of his shirt away from his chest, making sure the UMBC crowd got a good look at the ‘Maryland’ spelled across his jersey.
“We knew this was gonna be [that] kind of night here,” Cirovski said.
About five minutes later, UMBC equalized, ending Maryland’s 567-minute shutout streak and setting off a raucous celebration of their own.
“We should’ve locked it down [in the] next 5-6 minutes,” defender Donovan Pines said. “Just focus on defending.”
Pines’ first goal of his career gave Maryland the short-lived lead after a pair of dribbling moves crom forward Gordon Wild advanced the ball past defenders down the right flank.
Wild’s lob into the six-yard area travelled across the goal to Pines, who finished at the far post.
The score capped off a 10-minute blitz from the Terps coming out of intermission. Cirovski was unhappy to only have one goal out of the stretch of domination.
“We needed to get that second one,” Cirovski said. “We had a couple of good looks right away.”
They weren’t put away, however, and UMBC recovered and made the Terps pay in the 60th minute. Retrievers midfielder Gregg Hauck beat goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair to a lobbed pass in front of the net and poked it home.
St. Clair remained laying facedown in the turf after the score, as if mourning the end of his defense’s five-game clean sheet streak.
“[It was] kind of unfortunate,” Pines said. “You’re always vulnerable after you score.”
Neither team put away their chances in regulation or either overtime period.
Maryland wasn’t always happy with its level of play, the team said, but outshot the Retrievers, 24-12, reminiscent of the Terps’ 20-9 shot advantage over Michigan State.
“Tonight I felt like it was a day where we just didn’t have that final execution,” Cirovski said.
Cirovski credited UMBC with earning the result, which moved the Retrievers to 1-0-2 in its past three meetings with Maryland.
He felt his team was a bit unlucky, pointing to the countless shots —Cirovski guessed it was seven —blocked by Retriever defenders
More than that, though, Cirovski was disappointed with his team.
“We’re going through a tough spell right now,” Cirovski said. “This is not the standards we hold ourselves to.”