Men’s soccer ends skid, picks up first victory in eight matches
Published: October 24, 2008Section: Sports
Men’s soccer snapped their seven game winless streak surpassing Springfield College on a chilly Wednesday night, 2-0.
“To be honest with you,” Coach Mike Coven said after the match, “we played better against Chicago when we drew and we played much better against WashU and we lost but soccer is a funny game.
I don’t think we played nearly as well as we did over the weekend tonight. But we got the win and that’s what counts.”
Ben Premo ’09 opened the scoring 27 minutes into the match, capitalizing off a goalie misplay to give Brandeis the lead.
Premo would later leave the game though, after sustaining a concussion. Jaime Batista ’10 provided the insurance tally thanks to Patrick Metelus ’10, who drew away the goalie and set up the easy cross.
From there, the Judges withstood a furious effort by Springfield as they peppered the Judges with 16 shots but Matt Lynch’s ’11 five saves sealed the victory and his third shutout of his career.
“They’re a very athletic team,” Coach Coven said of the defeated Springfield Pride.
“Number 16 (John Plourd, four shots in the match) is a great, great player and we knew that we had to contain him and we knew they’d come at us with three front runners but they didn’t do that until the second half.”
“We knew they were going to be athletic and we knew we had to run with them and match their athleticism with our athleticism and then throw in some good soccer strategy. Worked pretty well,” he said.
With the win, Brandeis is now 7-6-2 on the season and don’t play again until October 28 at Lasell.
The break could not come soon enough for the Judges as they deal with a rash of injuries.
Luke Teece ’12, Alex Farr ’12 and Corey Bradley ’10 were held out of the match while Premo and Evan Ersing ’12 had to bow out early.
Coven, however, was optimistic about their recovery.
“Fortunately we’re not playing this weekend so that gives them almost a week, hopefully they’ll recover.”
Men’s soccer returns to home action October 31 against Emory University.