By: Johnny Moseman
The newly anointed No. 1 Maryland men’s soccer team took down No. 22 Michigan State 2-0 under the Friday night lights at Ludwig Field.
Tonight’s match featured the top two teams in the Big Ten, with Maryland in first and Michigan State in second. After winning tonight, Maryland extended their lead in the conference by three points, ultimately leading Michigan State by four points.
“This was our most complete game of the year,” said head coach Sasho Cirovski. “The last two wins didn’t feel great for us. We really committed getting some things right and make it tough for other teams to score.”
This was Maryland’s second shutout of the season, with the first coming against Hartford.
The first goal of the game came in the 54th minute when Jake Rozhansky was in the right place at the right time and netted a goal off an assist from Chris Odoi-Atsem and Eryk Williamson.
This was Rozhansky’s first goal he has ever scored at Ludwig Field and that is a major accomplishment in his eyes.
“It’s the best feeling for me personally this season,” Rozhansky said. “The eruption of the crowd and everything around me was amazing.”
This game started with much more tempo than the past few games the Terps have played. Both Sebastian Elney and Rozhansky had great opportunities to score within the first 10 minutes, but both shots missed the goal. Even though they missed, it was a much better start than Maryland has been used to in its past few games.
Things kept going wrong for the Spartans in the second half when in the 73rd minute, a Michigan State defender scored an own goal, giving the Terps a comfortable 2-0 lead.
Tonight’s match was all about defense for the Maryland, as that was what they worked on the most this week in practice, according to Rozhansky.
“Our defending hasn’t been good enough as a team,” Rozhansky said. “We worked on that a lot this week and the energy was great. When one person brings energy it is contagious.”
Tonight was another classic Friday night Ludwig crowd for tonight’s game. The stands were packed and the UMD men’s soccer fan club “The Crew” was out in full force cheering on the Terrapins and heckling Michigan State.
“I want to kiss every one of the members (of The Crew) and thank every one of them personally,” Cirovski said. “It means a lot to me to have this kind of support, dedication, and loyalty.”
The first video review of the Maryland men’s soccer season was used tonight when Amar Sejdic tried to chip the ball over Michigan State goalie Jimmy Hague. The ball got past Hague but Spartan defender Connor Corrigan volleyed the ball out right before it went into goal. Play stopped after this shot and officials went to go look at the footage. It was ultimately decided to be inconclusive evidence and the call of no goal stood.
Maryland (6-0-2, 3-0-1 Big Ten) is set to take on Northwestern in Chicago next Friday for their next match while Michigan State (5-2-0, 2-1-0 Big Ten) will Bowling Green in East Lansing on Wednesday.
