American University men’s soccer (5-4-4) won 2-0 against the Lehigh University Mountain Hawks (2-9-5) at Reeves Field on Saturday, Oct. 21.
Five minutes into the game, Mountain Hawks midfielder Noah Levy fouled Eagles senior forward Robbie Matei inside the box, awarding American a penalty kick. As Matei was setting up to take the kick, the referee reversed the call and handed the ball back to the Lehigh goalie. Fans did not take this well.
With 20 minutes left in the half, senior defender Cooper Nunn received the first yellow card of the game for knocking Mountain Hawks midfielder Yusef Gueye off his feet, preventing a Lehigh breakaway. Despite American taking five shots and Lehigh taking one, the score remained 0-0 at the end of the first half.
“The first half went exactly the way that Lehigh would want it to go, and so that was frustrating from a coach’s standpoint,” head coach Zach Samol said. “At half time we were really just saying, ‘Listen, it’s a battle out there, you’ve just got to win your battles. Then, once you win your battles, we’ll find moments to play some soccer.’”
After dribbling past several Mountain Hawks in the box, Matei tapped the ball towards junior forward Mustapha Sowe, who kicked it into the goal, putting American in the lead 1-0 five minutes into the second half. Over the next five minutes, American had two more close shots on goal, showing off their newfound momentum.
“Coming into halftime, [Samol] thought that our soccer was fine; what was lacking was more so our mentality,” Sowe said. “We just knew that we had to come out in the second half, change our mentality, and we would get the opportunity to score, so I did just that.”
Twenty-eight minutes into the second half, Lehigh forward Perry Kingson fouled junior forward Sam Hershey during another American offensive play and got the second yellow card of the game. With 13 minutes left of the game, Nunn made a diving save on an on-target shot by Lehigh midfielder Emmett Shea.
After receiving a pass from junior midfielder Zemi Rodriguez through a Lehigh player’s legs, junior defender Taku Takahashi slammed the ball from the left corner of the field into the top right corner of the goal, putting the Eagles up 2-0 with 10 minutes left to play.
Lehigh defender Sam Davis received the third yellow card of the game after he slide-tackled sophomore defender Jonah Fogel with the studs of his cleats pointed upwards. After a couple more Lehigh fouls in the last few minutes of the game — an attempt to put themselves on the scoreboard — American was able to hold the Mountain Hawks off and end the game 2-0.
“I felt confident that if our guys could kind of earn the right to play and win the battles, that we would get chances to score and have some good moments, and we did that, so credit to the guys,” Samol said.
The Eagles play their next game against the Army Black Knights on Saturday, Oct. 28, where they will celebrate the team’s seniors in their last home game of the regular season.
This article was edited by Penelope Jennings, Delaney Hoke and Abigail Pritchard. Copy editing done by Isabelle Kravis and Olivia Citarella.
