In their final game of the 2012 season, NYU men’s soccer fell to number 11 Brandeis University 1-0 on Saturday, Nov. 3 at Gaelic Park.
This is the fifth straight loss for the Violets, which leaves their regular season record at 10-7-1.
Six seniors were honored before the start of their final NYU soccer game. Forwards Kyle Green and Paolo Luciano, midfielders captain Niki Chow and Ryan Horch and goalies Adam Foda and Jonas Poster will all be graduating this academic year. Five of these six players were starters this season.
“It’s an end of an era of seniors,” Luciano said.
NYU opened the game with a strong start and a couple of close chances to score, but a strong performance from the Judges’ senior goalie Blake Minchoff gave him a clean sheet and kept NYU forwards Green and Luciano from scoring.
Green’s best opportunity came early in the 13th minute of the game with a powerful shot in the upper right corner, but Minchoff dove to block the ball and had his first save of the game.
Violet goalie Poster ended the game with three saves.
Green tallied a total of four shots, including two on goal, adding to the Violets’ sum of 12 shots.
The only other shot on goal for NYU came from Chow soon after Green’s strong shot in the first half of the match. Luciano passed Chow a through ball behind the Judges’ defense, but Minchoff slid to block the effort.
Luciano was subbed out of the match in the 38th minute, possibly the last play time of his collegiate soccer career.
Most of the Judges’ 12 shots on goal came from midfielder and sole scorer of the match Sam Ocel.
The match’s second half brought more scoring opportunities for both teams who remained scoreless until the 68th minute when Ocel headed the ball into the back of the goal off a bouncing corner kick. Ten minutes earlier, NYU sophomore midfielder Nimo Bergstroem took a shot inside the box that came from sophomore forward Anthony Baini in the center.
After NYU’s record-breaking 9-0 start to the season, the Violets saw themselves defeated by unranked New Jersey City University. After this loss, they went on to win only one out of their next eight matches, shockingly losing to two more unranked teams. NYU men’s soccer was only able to defeat two conference rivals, Case Western Reserve University and University of Chicago.
“We stopped doing a lot of good things from the first half of the season in our last eight games,” said junior left back Juan Velez. “I’m disappointed we couldn’t get a win for the graduating seniors, but I enjoyed my three years playing with them.”
This was the final game of the regular season. The Violets must wait until Monday, Nov. 5 for the results of other conference matches to find out if they have a chance of making it to the post season.
A version of this article appeared in the Monday, Nov. 5 print edition. Francisco Navas is a staff writer. Email him at [email protected].
