By Emily Olsen
Before Maryland played a minute of soccer Wednesday night against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, potential storylines swirled around Ludwig Field:
Final game for highly scouted Terps fighting for the postseason
Captain Corboz to face former team in conclusion of his regular season college career
Senior Night
But on a night designed to honor the four seniors of the 2015 Maryland men’s soccer program, it was a fresh face who saved the team from the lower ranks of the standings heading into post season.
Freshman forward Eryk Williamson scored his first and second career goals for the Terps in a 3-1 victory over No. 16 Rutgers.
“It feels good,” Williamson said. “They [the coaches] have been pushing all year for us to score and it finally paid off.”
Williamson has started 15 of the 17 games for Maryland this year, but was on the sideline at the start of Wednesday’s game. Coach Sasho Cirovski opted to go with a more veteran lineup for the match and started sophomore George Campbell and senior David Kabelik at forward. In previous matches Cirovski has played Williamson and fellow freshman Sebastian Elney in the forward positions.
Elney missed Wednesday’s match due to a suspension gained in the previous game against Ohio State.
“George and David are experienced players, and I thought this was a game they could be successful in. George has been really sharp in training,” Cirovski said. “Eryk was always going to play. I wanted to take some pressure off of him and bring him off the bench.”
Williamson’s time on the bench was cut short Wednesday when, after only 28 seconds of play, Campbell went down with a left arm injury. An impactful scorer in the Terps’ 2014 season, Campbell scored a hat trick earlier this season against Penn State.
When Campbell fell to the turf clearly in pain, Cirovski immediately called up Williamson from the bench. The substitution paid off.
“It pushed me to match the intensity of everybody else,” Williamson said. “Instead of trying to do it right away, it just took thirty seconds to see where everyone was.”
In the 11th minute of play, Williamson caught a rebound off of a David Greczek block from three feet away and put one in the back of the net. Immediately, senior midfielder Tsubasa Endoh ran to celebrate the 1-0 lead with his freshman teammate.
“Me and Tsu get along a lot, and I just wasn’t expecting him to be the first one, but it meant a lot,” Williamson said. “Tsu is a guy that has always been pushing me this year and knowing he had my back once I scored meant a lot.”
Endoh also contributed to the score chart on a controversial second goal for the Terps.
In the 24th minute, the midfielder ripped a shot from 22 yards out. The ball ricocheted off the crossbar and down toward the goal. Greczek got hands on the ball and forced it outward. Center back Alex Crognale headed the rebound toward the goal, but the sideline referee whistled for the goal. Several Rutgers players argued the call, but the goal stood.
Before Wednesday’s defeat at the hands of Maryland, Rutgers had gone seven games without a loss. The match was physical from the opening minutes. Players on both sides took some hard knocks as both sides fought for higher seeds in the Big Ten postseason.
Rutgers retaliated in the 48th minute when Mitch Lurie sent a free kick into the box and Miles Hackett finished the shot.
“That’s a great team, that Rutgers team,” Cirovski said. “They have some of the most dynamic attacking players in the nation. They are a handful for anybody.”
The Terps sealed their victory in the 55th minute when Williamson took a cross from Kabelik and finished with a close-range ball past Greczek.
“This was a team victory, and beyond the ten players that were on the field, the entire team was really focused on this,” Cirovski said.
After the final whistle blew, his current teammates jogged over to the Crew, but midfielder Mael Corboz reunited with three of his former teammates on the Rutgers side. The senior transferred from Rutgers after captaining the Scarlet Knights his sophomore year. The former teammates amicably parted ways and Corboz rejoined his team and the Crew.
Corboz said he is not focused on the sentimental value of Wednesday night’s game, but focused on what lies ahead for the Terps.
“Obviously this feels good [to win], but there is still a long road ahead for this team. I think we are far from finished,” Corboz said. “It is important for us to realize we played really well, but at the same time we have a game in four days and we haven’t responded well to good wins. I think the next few days are important for us to stay in check and not get too high.”
Keeping form and responding to the win is the focus for the whole team heading into their first 2015 postseason match Sunday against Michigan at Ludwig Field.
“The momentum is only as good as we make it,” Cirovski said after the win against Rutgers. “We have a saying that ‘our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising every time we fall.’”
