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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Friday, March 29, 2024

Jumbos perform well against pair of top opponents

2014-09-06-Mens-Soccer-4-0-v.-Bates-12
Tufts men's soccer takes on Bates in 2014.

The men's soccer team began the tough part of its schedule strong, beating NESCAC rival Wesleyan 1-0 in overtime on Wednesday before losing a hard-fought battle to No. 5 Brandeis on Saturday.

On Saturday, Tufts faced its biggest test of the season, and, despite falling to Brandeis 2-0, looked equal to one of the best teams in the country.

Initially, neither team could break the game open. However, with the Judges playing a possession game in their own end, the Jumbos were able to force a few turnovers, and in the 44th minute, only a diving stop from Brandeis senior keeper Joe Graffy prevented a goal from senior Gus Santos.

"They're a very good possession-based team, and they had a lot of the ball in the first half, but we felt they had the ball in places that weren't making it dangerous for us," head coach Josh Shapiro said. "We were able to turn them over and [put ourselves] in positive positions. I don't think we created enough opportunities out of those positions. Given where we had won the ball back, I think we should have produced more, but we also produced three or four excellent chances in the first half, and you have to take one of them."

In the second half, gameplay see-sawed,  as both teams created several threatening chances. Finally, in the 79th minute, Brandeis got on the board off of a corner kick. The cross was booted around in the box and found its way to senior midfielder Michael Soboff, who dribbled to the end line and passed to senior defender Robbie Lynch, who put the ball in the back of the net to give Brandeis a 1-0 lead.

"In the last 15 minutes, I thought we maybe lost our discipline a little bit," Shapiro said. "We started to really kind of throw everything at it and they sort of counterattacked one of our counterattacks, and that's what led to the corner kick, which led to the goal."

Brandeis took advantage of the aggressive Tufts defense in the waning minutes, adding a goal to its total when sophomore forward Zach Vieira caught a perfect lob ball and chipped sophomore goalkeeper Scott Greenwood to seal the victory.

"I thought we started pressing them a little bit harder and turning them over," senior co-captain forward Maxime Hoppenot said. "But then there were more clear-cut chances for both sides, and it opened up a little bit more, and they took their chances and we didn't, which ended up being the difference."

The end result notwithstanding, the Jumbos are happy with the way they competed against a team they hope to see again in the NCAA tournament.

"It was a hard-fought game," Hoppenot said. "I think it could have been a different result on a different day, but I thought we played well. We were disappointed with the result, but we thought that we created enough and defended enough to have a good place to start going forward."

On Wednesday Tufts did not have to settle for any half-victories, as it triumphed over a perennial NESCAC contender, Wesleyan.

The win over Wesleyan moved Tufts to 3-0 in the NESCAC, and more importantly, it proved the Jumbos are well equipped to face off against the best teams in the conference. Coming off wins over Bates and Colby, two teams that are still seeking their first conference wins, the matchup against Wesleyan proved to be the toughest yet for Tufts -- who met the challenge.

"When you look at the game against Wesleyan, and you look at the games against Wesleyan over the last three years, it's a very competitive slate," Shapiro said. "It's a team that we know is a great measuring stick for where we want to be. The games are always tight, [head coach Geoff Wheeler] always does an excellent job organizing his group and their approach is always smart and tactically sophisticated. We knew it was going to be a challenging game."

In the first half, both teams played mostly in the middle of the field, with Tufts outshooting Wesleyan 6-0. Although the Jumbos' midfield is shaping up to be one of the most talented units in the NESCAC this year, the trio of Cardinal midfielders -- freshman Garrett Hardesty, senior Daniel Issroff, and junior Brandon Sousa -- kept the Jumbos at bay.

The second half featured a swifter pace, as both teams became increasingly desperate to get on the board. Wesleyan threatened immediately, when a well-played ball found freshman forward Adam Cowie-Haskell for one-on-one with Greenwood. Cowie-Haskell was able to send a soft shot past Greenwood toward the goal, but senior co-captain defender Sam Williams came sprinting from the right side to make a sliding stop right in front of the goal line and clear the ball.

"They had some great chances early in the second half, when we were starting to get after them, but they countered and created some chances, and we were lucky to sneak through those windows," Shapiro said.

As the game wore on, it was the Jumbos' fresh legs that made the difference. Shapiro delved way down into his depth chart, as freshmen midfielders Scott Sclar and Tyler Kulcsar and freshman forward Stephen McMillian all saw time during critical moments of the second half. All three freshmen looked particularly spry against a worn-out Wesleyan defense, and they allowed a much-needed rest for upperclassmen like Hoppenot, Santos and junior Connor Brown.

This extra rest paid off in overtime, as the Jumbos spent virtually the entirety of the extra frame in the Cardinals' end, pestering senior goalie Emmett McConnell.

Finally, in the 98th minute, Tufts broke through.

Junior midfielder Rui Pinhiero lofted a beautiful cross off a corner kick, which found junior Monil Patel. The defender then headed the ball into a wide-open net to end the game.

For a team that has dealt with midseason slumps in the past, how well it bounces back from the loss against Brandeis will be indicative of how the rest of the year shapes up. The upcoming schedule does not provide Tufts with any reprieve, as Tufts takes on quality teams in MIT, Amherst and Middlebury in its upcoming three games. The Jumbos, undeterred, believe they can emerge victorious no matter whom they play.

"I'm not nervous to play another top-10 team, and I hope our guys aren't either," Shapiro said. "I think it's more of a 'we're here, we're good enough, let's go take it.'"