The scenery surrounding Ruth J. Totman Field has been progressing since the
start of the season. The leaves on the trees displayed a shade of solid
green in early September. Now, in mid-October, an array of colors from fall
foliage dangle from the trees – a sign of the changing seasons.
The scenery inside Totman Field has progressed since the start of the
season as well. A team has grown and prospered over time.
The Massachusetts men’s soccer team (11-3, 6-1 A-10) started the season
unsure of where they would stand in the Atlantic 10 conference. With two
wins over conference foes St. Joseph’s (7-5, 3-3 A-10) and Temple (2-11-1,
1-6 A-10) this weekend, the Minutemen know exactly where they now stand –
first place in the division.
The Maroon and White pulled out a 3-2 win over the St. Joe’s Hawks on
Friday. Then on Sunday, behind a stellar performance from sophomore forward
Ptah Myers, UMass shutout the Temple Owls, 5-0. The Minutemen got some help
from the Fordham Rams as they defeated No. 1 Richmond over the weekend
putting UMass in a three-way tie with the Spiders and Rhode Island for first
place in the Atlantic 10 standings with four matches remaining in the
regular season.
“Everybody is fighting to get into the playoffs, so it’s crucial to get
that No. 1 spot,” Head Coach Sam Koch said. “Bottom line is we got to play
well and do the things we need to do to continually improve every week.”
Junior forward Yuri Morales was the hero against St. Josephs on Friday as
he ended the 99-minute marathon with a firing shot past SJU goalkeeper Kevin
Dougher in over-time.
After the ball was kicked high in the air by the Hawks defenders in the SJU
zone, Morales captured the ball at the center of the box and blasted the
ball through the net, giving UMass a 3-2 win and its sixth victory in a row.
“I just saw it coming down. It was like in slow motion,” Morales said. I
trapped it and fired away.”
It was the Morales’ third goal of the season. The Santa Cruz, Calif. native
is usually setting up his teammates rather than scoring himself, as he is
the A-10 leader in assists this season with nine.
“He hit it really well and the keeper had no chance,” Koch said. “Under the
circumstances it was a big time goal.”
One circumstance that Koch is referring to was that UMass did not play one
of its best games against an opponent that came to battle.
The Minutemen got on the scoreboard first in the match when junior forward
Jeff Deren continued his scoring streak and netted his tenth goal of the
season in the 14th minute. He now stands atop the leader board in the A-10
conference for goals scored.
Sloppy play hurt the Minutemen for most of the match and it cost them two
goals.
Ten minutes after the first UMass goal, Hawks midfielder Ryan Dougherty
tied the match at one, when senior goalkeeper Bryan O’Quinn failed to drive
the ball out of the UMass zone.
Junior forward Andrew Eicher was able to regain the lead right before the
end of the first half when he netted a shot from the right side of the box –
making the score 2-1 at halftime.
Nine minutes into the second half, St. Joe’s was able to knot up the score
once again. This time undermanned due to a red card given out to forward Jim
McGuigan, SJU showed great teamwork as forward Andrew Duffy scored on
perfect pass from forward Andrew Kulinski – evening the score 2-2.
“We gave up two bad goals and made a game out of it,” Koch said. “St. Joe’s
did a great job of making it difficult and you have to give them credit, but
we made it a lot harder than we needed to.”
Nine minutes into the extra session, Morales put an end to the Minutemen’s
inauspicious play and scored the game-winner for UMass.
“We didn’t play as well as we needed to, but the key thing is we got the
win,” Koch said. “This was a good wakeup call.”
Coach Koch told his players before the match with Temple that they better
not let down or there would be an awful amount of running in practice this
week. Sunday, the entire team responded to the skipper’s demand. One man in
particular, who responded, was Myers.
He scored an astonishing four goals against the lowly Owls – three in the
first half and one in the second. He doubled his output of the season so far
in one match. He is only the seventh man in school history to pull off this
amazing feat.
“I just tried to come out and do my thing and my teammates helped me,”
Myers said. “It feels great to get in the record books.”
The Maroon and White’s 5-0 victory over Temple cannot only be attributed to
Myers’ four goals, as co-captain O’Quinn recorded his fifth shutout of the
season.
“O’Quinn came up big when he had to,” Koch said.
“The squad learned from their mistakes on Friday and all around it was a
great performance,” Koch added. “It was fun to watch.”