Connecticut entered Monday’s game against the Maryland men’s soccer team notching three consecutive clean sheets and not having lost a game since Sept. 2.
The Terps beat Northwestern, 3-0, on Friday, representing a step forward for a previously struggling offense. But it was difficult to draw conclusions since the Wildcats defense ranks 188th in the country.
The Terps proved that performance wasn’t a fluke. They used their offensive firepower for a 3-2 win over Connecticut and its eighth-ranked defense in Storrs, Connecticut.
“We’ve scored three goals [in each of] the last two games,” coach Sasho Cirovski said. “It’s good to see that part coming along.”
Maryland forward DJ Reeves gave the Terps a 3-1 lead in the 67th minute and the Terps cruised until the 88th minute, when a defensive giveaway gifted the Huskies a goal and made for a couple of nervous moments in the game’s closing stages.
Midfielder Eryk Williamson put Maryland on the board in the 27th minute, when forward Gordon Wild’s deflected shot came back to the German. He slipped a pass to Williamson, who tucked a shot inside the left post for a 1-0 lead.
The Terps would’ve scored even earlier, but Wild was called offside in the 17th minute after appearing to score a goal.
“We came out with a lot of the same fire that we had in the Northwestern game,” defender George Campbell said.
As Williamson’s third goal of the season hit the side netting, he took a quick peek to see whether the assistant referee called him offside. The flag stayed down and Williamson went on with his celebration as the Huskies defenders pleaded further for an offside call.
“The fact that we scored early today forced UConn to come out and try to attack us,” midfielder Jake Rozhansky said. “[In previous games] we’ve had chances to score early [but] we hadn’t taken those chances and teams can sit back more on us.”
The Huskies answered back seven minutes later with one of the first successful counterattacks against Maryland this season. As Maryland scrambled back to defend, Connecticut midfielder Niko Petridis slipped a pass towards midfielder Cheikh Stephane Coly as Coly ran into the box.
Maryland defender Donovan Pines knocked Coly down a couple of feet inside the area and the referee awarded a penalty kick, the first penalty kick Maryland has surrendered this year. Connecticut midfielder Blaise N’Gague beat goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair to equalize and send the game to halftime tied.
“We had a good talk from [Cirovski] at half,” Campbell said. “He thought we were all over them and [told us] to continue to do what we were doing.”
Midfielder Amar Sejdic combined with Rozhansky for a goal 10 minutes after intermission. Sejdic unlocked the defense with one pass and Rozhansky finished cleanly for his fourth score of the year, showing the type of composure in the final third the Terps lacked during their earlier offensive slumps.
“We definitely worked on our finishing in practice after Michigan State and the [other] games we’ve tied,” Rozhansky said. “It’s working for us.”
The game slowed down after Reeves’ first goal of the season, which was another example of a clever pass from the midfield, freeing a player behind the defense.
But with the game all but over, a giveaway in defense gave Huskies defender Nicolas Apostol a clean look at goal and he finished, taking advantage of a rare mistake from a Maryland backline that had six shutouts in its last seven games.
St. Clair made a few plays in the final minutes to prevent the Huskies from forcing overtime, finishing with three saves and helping secure Maryland’s 29th consecutive regular season game without a loss.
“We were exceptional today,” Cirovski said. “Everyone performed at a high level.”
