It was a slow-paced game in Tuesday night’s match against St. John’s, as No. 11 Maryland men’s soccer found itself tied 0-0 in the 61st minute of regulation. But Rodrigo Neri decided it was time to act.
Receiving a pass from Farouk Cisse outside the penalty box, the Spaniard did the rest himself by dribbling into the box and sending a ball through a defender’s leg and into the back of the net for his team-leading seventh goal of the season.
That proved to be the game-winner as the Terps shut out the Red Storm, 1-0.
Through the first 15 minutes, neither team had a shot on goal. The best chance came in the 20th minute when Neri fired an attempt that bounced off the left post. He came into tonight’s match leading the Terps in shots, with 36.
Albi Ndrenika had a close call in the 28th minute, and Ljubomir Popovich did 10 minutes later, but whenever the Terps had a chance to create something, the Red Storm shut it down quickly.
On the other side, the Terps’ defense delivered one of its more impressive performances of the season. It held the Red Storm to zero shots on goal through the first 41 minutes, and just two shots in the entire first half.
St. John’s first on-target shot came at 41:58, when Xavi Abeijon fired from midfield to a backpedaling Laurin Mack, who was outside his usual spot. The Red Storm would get just one more shot on goal the rest of the game, and total just five shots.
This is a unit for Maryland that has had bumpy moments this season, giving up 22 goals coming into Tuesday night. That has been a far cry from last season’s unit, when it allowed just seven goals through the first 12 matches. But Tuesday night gave a shaky backline a nice performance, to say the least.
“You just want to keep getting better,” head coach Sasho Cirovski said about the defense. “We have been giving up too many goals this year… last game we gave up one, today was a shutout, so that’s a good sign.”
Tonight’s victory marks the first back-to-back win since the Terps started 5-0, highlighted by top-10 wins against High Point (No. 9) and Georgetown (No. 5). It also saw the Terps record their first shutout since September 18 when they defeated Wisconsin, 1-0.
“We want to become a team that takes a bit more pride in our defending,” Cirovski said.
The Terps are in the final stretch of the regular season, with games against Ohio State, Washington and Penn State being the final three before the Big Ten Tournament. The Terps sit at sixth in the Big Ten standings, which would be right at the cut line for not qualifying.
“Everything is possible, and we got to start keeping the shutout feeling up for other games and continue doing that,” said goalkeeper Laurin Mack.
The game against Washington will be tough, as the Huskies are No. 7 in the country. But first, the Terps must take care of business against the Buckeyes this Saturday.
