Sasho Cirovski was dumbfounded. No. 15 Maryland men’s soccer’s coach looked at referee Dimitar Chavdarov with his shoulders shrugged and palms to the sky just over half an hour into Friday’s first half against No. 13 Michigan.
Seconds later, Chavdarov backed away from a furious Cirovski, made a rectangular motion with his fingers, raised his left hand and blew his whistle. For the second time in 21 minutes, Chavdarov had chalked a would-be Maryland goal off the board because of an offsides penalty.
Chavdarov returned to the replay monitor just over 10 minutes into the second half. This time when he stepped away from the screen, Wolverines coach Chaka Daley was incensed. The primary referee had just upheld a Maryland penalty, one that junior Leon Koehl soon converted.
Sophomore Stephane Njike added an additional score later in the half, sealing Maryland’s 2-0 win over Michigan at Ludwig Field.
The Terps’ (7-0-3, 3-0-2 Big Ten) unbeaten start now sits at 10 matches, their best opening to a campaign since 2017. They’re also 6-0-1 in their past seven Friday night home games, a stretch that’s nearing two years.
“I don’t know how many fans there were, but they popped out. [We wanted to] give something back to them,” Koehl said. “That’s what you come to Maryland for.”
[Maryland field hockey secures first top-10 win, beats No. 10 Iowa 2-1]
Cirovski’s confidence has seldom been misguided during his 33-year as Maryland’s manager.
He made a bold statement after Maryland’s 2-2 draw against Bucknell on August 29th. With 14 matches still left in the regular season, the Terps’ head coach said Koehl wouldn’t miss another penalty the rest of the year.
Nearly a month and a half later, those words still ring true.
With his spot-kick score in the 56th minute, Koehl has converted all three of his attempts since Cirovski’s early-season declaration.
That return to form comes after Koehl led the nation in penalties last year, going a perfect 7-for-7 from 12 yards out. His miss against Bucknell earlier this year remains the only of his career.
“He likes that mental challenge, and I don’t coach him on any of that stuff,” Cirovski said. “This is something that he just steps up and has the calmness and confidence [to do].”
Maryland’s two offsides calls looked detrimental until Koehl’s opening goal. Those penalties overshadowed what was an otherwise clean attacking half.
One week after registering a season-low two shots on goal against UCLA, the Terps tallied three in Friday’s first half. They created cleaner looks at the net with crisper passing — specifically one-touch passing, which Koehl described as a point of emphasis for the team in training.
[Behind Maryland football’s early-season success is a dynamic freshman class]
Senior Luca Costabile got tagged with Maryland’s first disallowed goal. The chance started when midfielder Chris Steinleitner played a quick one-two with senior Joseph Umberto Picotto, beating a Michigan defender in the process.
Steinleitner then provided the deft one-touch pass to Costabile to play him through on goal, but he was ultimately deemed to be just beyond junior Will Baker — Michigan’s deepest defender — when the ball was played.
The Terps featured a few other instances of fancy one-touch play in the first half, predominantly along the left side, but none resulted in scores.
The offsides call in the 34th-minute effaced what would’ve been Leon Koehl’s third assist of the year.
He played a Rocket Ritrita through on-goal with a diagonal pass. The freshman then played a one-touch cross to Luke van Heukelum, who tapped into the open goal. The linesman’s flag once again went up immediately, but it largely went unnoticed until after celebrations had already ensued since his whistle was hardly audible.
But jubilation returned in the second half.
Just under 16 minutes after Koehl scored, Albi Ndrenika created Njike’s goal with a no-look back heel pass.
The sophomore has now scored four times this season, tying him for a team-best mark.
Njike celebrated his first two goals this season with his signature handspring-into-backflip celebration. He abandoned those acrobatics after scoring against Pittsburgh a few weeks ago, but brought it back on Friday, with three handsprings and a flip — some extra glamour to accompany the game’s final score.
“When he starts flipping and the lights are blinking, things are good here at Ludwig,” Cirovski said.
