The men's soccer team continued its winning trend with another victory, riding a game-winner from senior tri-captain Mattia Chason to a win at Rhode Island College on Tuesday night.
The Jumbos' 3-2 victory over the Anchormen improved their overall record to 3-4-1 (2-3-1 NESCAC), and was another explosive offensive output by a team that had struggled to piece together goals early in the season.
Senior forward Ben Castellot, who notched a goal on the night, commented on his team's recent splurge of offensive productivity.
"In the beginning of the year, we just weren't getting good breaks," Castellot said. "Now that we've continued to work hard, the goals are coming in bunches."
The Jumbos have averaged 3.3 goals per game in their past three victories, a sizable improvement to their dismal 1.2 goals per game over the course of their first five contests.
The Jumbos started off strong, converting in just the 14th minute of play to grab an early lead. Sophomore midfielder Peter DeGregorio found room to bury a loose ball in the box to put the Jumbos up 1-0. With continued support from the reinvigorated Tufts offense, Castellot added a second goal in the 35th minute to bolster the Jumbos' lead. The senior netted his third of the season into the bottom left corner of the cage off a delicate feed from Chason.
The Anchormen answered and brought their own firepower to the opening minutes of the second stanza. The Rhode Island offense stymied Tufts' momentum with a score in the 49th minute off a pass from sophomore Derek Arsenault.
Only minutes later, junior midfielder Julian Montoya found himself sprinting after a through-ball sent between him and Tufts freshman goalkeeper Pat Tonelli. Tonelli challenged aggressively and was whistled for a foul inside the 18-yard box, which set up junior Jimmy Hernandez for his second goal of the match on the ensuing penalty kick.
After just nine minutes of second half play the momentum of the game had been reversed, the score had been tied, and the Jumbos found themselves second-guessing the likelihood of extending their winning streak to three games.
"Of course, at that moment we were down as a team," Castellot said. "They got two quick goals on us and we felt the pressure. But we were lacking that pressure going into the second half, and that's how we got into that position. I give a lot of credit to my teammates for persevering under that pressure and finding a way to win the game."
Chason channeled that urgency and came up with the game-winning goal in the 69th minute on assists from DeGregorio junior forward Dan Jozwiak. It was Chason's fourth goal of the year and arguably the most important of the Jumbos' season.
After the up-and-down play of the match concluded, the Jumbos outshot the Anchormen by a slim 17-16 margin, with an 8-7 edge in shots reaching the cage. Tonelli played strong in goal with five saves.
Although the Jumbos have found a knack for hitting the net, they now face the formidable task of unlocking the Bowdoin defense, which shut out NESCAC rivals Amherst and Middlebury last weekend. The Polar Bears' defense is anchored by last week's NESCAC Player of the Week, junior goalkeeper Nathan Lovitz.
The Jumbos will need every advantage they can get as they head to Maine, and the ability to win on the road, gleaned from Tuesday's win, will come in handy against the 6-1 Polar Bears.
"It definitely helps to get a win on the road with [the] Bowdoin away [game] coming up," senior co-captain Jon Glass said. "The most important thing is that we keep winning games to stay in a positive mind frame and to get back up to .500."
With three days of practice between Tuesday's win and Saturday's road trip, the Jumbos are polishing what's working and fixing what isn't.
"We're going to work on a lot of finishing in practice, which we've been doing a lot of lately," Glass said. "But most importantly, we're going to focus on playing our game and not letting the other team control or dictate the way we play. I think we have realized that when we possess the ball for the majority of the 90 minutes and make the other team play our game, we are going to have a lot of success as a team."
