By: Brittney Bridges
The Maryland Terrapins men’s soccer team play to its third tie of the season to an impressive UMBC team. The Terps previously tied with Indiana and Michigan State, making UMBC their first tie this season against an unranked opponent.
The Terrapins headed to Baltimore to play the 5-2-1 Retrievers on Tuesday night. The 7 p.m. match was played in front of a record breaking crowd, with 3,766 coming out to see if the Retrievers could take down the No. 3 Terps.
Play was competitive from the beginning, but in typical Maryland fashion, the score was tied 0-0 heading into halftime. Gordon Wild had three shot attempts in the first half including one that hit the crossbar. At the end of the night, he finished with 10 shot attempts, with most of them landing right into the hands of UMBC’s goalie Ciara O’Loughlin.
Perhaps the busiest players of the night were the goalkeepers. Dayne St. Clair saw more action than usual, and had to make five saves compared to O’Loughlin, who undoubtedly played a crucial part in the Retrievers success. He was forced to make seven saves.
St. Clair’s best save came toward the end of the first half from a header by UMBC’s Noel Cormac that caused St. Clair to extend his body laterally in order to prevent the ball from going in the upper right hand corner of the net. He had a similar save in the second overtime.
It wasn’t until the 54th minute when Maryland capitalized. Donovan Pines got his first career goal off of a low kick to the corner. The play started when Amar Sejdic received the ball around the 25-yard line and did a quick move to bypass his first defender, only to make the second oncoming one stumble back and give him space to cross the ball to Jake Rozhansky. Rozhansky then skipped the ball right to the foot of Pines. This also gave Rozhansky his sixth assist of the season.
UMBC quickly answered as one of its leading scorers, Gregg Hauck, tied it in the 59th minute. An open Hauck got a clear kick in the right side of the goal, which most Maryland fans are used to seeing St. Clair save; but instead the ball sailed into the net, as he stood flat footed.
This was Maryland’s first goal given up in the past five games. Ever since that play, it was back-and-forth with no result. Fouls plagued both teams with UMBC getting 11 calls and Maryland receiving seven.
Maryland finished the game with 24 shots with eight of them being on goal, while UMBC finished with 12 shots with six of them on goal. The Terps had countless opportunities, but couldn’t convert. Six of Maryland’s players attempted at least two shots.
Juniors Sebastian Elney and Amar Sejdic both had frustrating games as both had key opportunities to score. Most of Elney’s shots were high, while Sejdic was wide. Some of this can be accredited to UMBC’s defense that overall succeeded at its task of stopping Maryland’s fierce offense. But most of the missed opportunities were mistakes on Maryland’s end.
Though it wasn’t entirely expected, the exciting match ended in a 1-1 draw. Maryland’s record now stands at 6-0-3. Maryland looks forward to playing back home at Ludwig Field this Friday at 7 p.m. for a Big Ten matchup against Northwestern.
