American University men’s soccer (5-4-4) won their first Patriot League game of the season at Reeves Field against the Naval Academy Midshipmen (5-6-4) 1-0 on Wednesday, Oct. 18.
The first part of the half left both teams scoreless, with American having a majority of possession. The dynamic shifted 26 minutes into the game when sophomore midfielder Troy Elgersma crossed the ball from the right corner into the box and senior midfielder Ethan Boyle smashed it into the goal, putting the Eagles up 1-0.
Shortly after American’s goal, Navy defender Victor Saade received a yellow card for fouling an American player and then arguing with the referee after the foul. The rest of the half saw several more shots from the Eagles, but none by the Midshipmen.
Navy began the second half with another yellow card, this time on defender Charlie Kriel for slide tackling senior forward Robbie Matei. In a breakaway play by Navy, forward Andrew Schug kicked the team’s first shot on goal, but sophomore goalkeeper Matthew Tibbetts dove and saved the ball.
With 10 minutes left of the game, junior midfielder Zemi Rodriguez received the third yellow card of the game for fouling a Navy player. In a breakaway run, junior forward Sam Hershey shot the ball towards an uncontested goal, but just barely missed. Fifteen seconds until the end of the game, Rodriguez had one last chance at a shot, but goalkeeper Pierce Holbrook saved it, and the game ended 1-0.
“Winning our first Patriot League game of the season feels great,” Boyle said. “It kind of feels like we should have been doing this a long time ago, but we’ll take our first win and hopefully keep rolling with it.”
Head coach Zach Samol felt that the team had been playing well all season and was relieved to finally get their first Patriot League win this season.
“We are playing well with a lot of facets of the game and I think that, again, comes out today,” Samol said. “Today you saw a great goal from us, you saw a real push, and you saw a little bit more fight from us. I think at the end of the game maybe we could have managed better for sure, but I thought overall the guys played with a sense of purpose.”
The Eagles had a quick turnaround this week, winning 2-0 against the Lehigh University Mountain Hawks on Oct. 21. Their next match will be Oct. 28 against Army at home.
This article was edited by Penelope Jennings, Delaney Hoke and Abigail Pritchard. Copy editing done by Isabelle Kravis and Olivia Citarella.
