In the Maryland men’s soccer team’s season opener at Santa Clara, a defensive turnover nearly allowed the Broncos to go 2-0 up in the 17th minute.
The Terps recovered from the early mistake to win, 4-2. Aside from a shaky performance in a 3-2 win against UCLA, they’ve made few errors since.
No. 3 Maryland matched its school record with five consecutive clean sheets and didn’t allow more than one goal over a seven-game stretch entering Monday. The run came despite four new starting defenders.
Connecticut found attacking success in the Terps’ 3-2 win in Storrs, Connecticut. Still, coach Sasho Cirovski is confident the defense that kept six clean sheets in its previous seven competitions is strong enough to push deep into the postseason.
“The two goals we gave up are maybe not representative of how good we were defensively,” Cirovski said.
The Huskies’ second goal came in the 88th minute thanks to a giveaway reminiscent of the mistake against Santa Clara. It was the type of blunder Maryland (8-0-3, 3-0-2 Big Ten) had avoided for most of the season.
“It was one of those rare events where guys turned off their focus,” defender George Campbell said. “We’ll watch it and learn from it. It definitely won’t happen again.”
The bigger mistake in Cirovski’s eyes wasn’t the inaccuracy of Johannes Bergmann’s wayward pass to Chase Gasper, but the tactics that led to the maneuver.
Up two goals with a couple of minutes remaining, the backline should have looked to clear the ball from its defensive third rather than applying a more methodical approach.
“It was just a mistake to give [the Huskies] a chance,” Cirovski said. “We put ourselves in trouble. That’s something that’s a teaching moment for the future.”
In addition to scoring the first non-set-piece goal Maryland has surrendered all year, the Huskies scored from a counter attack in the 34th-minute goal. Down by a goal, the Huskies earned possession and aggressively advanced down the field, earning a penalty that midfielder Blaise N’Gague netted to equalize.
Maryland hadn’t given up a score stemming from a counter attack in its first 10 games.
Midfielder Jake Rozhansky said it’s important for the offense to help out the defense by showing more patience with the attack’s passing.
“You have to see what the situation is,” Rozhansky said. “Can you actually attack right away and get a chance, or is the other team defending well? You need to wait for the best moment.”
Campbell and the Terps weren’t pleased with the penalty awarded to Connecticut. Defender Donovan Pines knocked down Huskies midfielder Cheikh Coly a couple of steps inside the box, but it was unclear whether Coly would have beaten Maryland midfielder Andrew Samuels to the ball anyway.
Despite Maryland feeling the Huskies’ two goals were somewhat fluky, the squad didn’t appreciate giving up multiple goals for just the third time all season.
“It definitely angered us,” Campbell said. “We’re going to look at this as a backline and as a whole group and really use it to fuel us for the next couple games and the rest of the season. It wasn’t a good feeling having two put in on us.”
