The Massachusetts men’s soccer team split a road series this weekend and remained in the hunt for an Atlantic 10 tournament berth.
After a 4-0 blowout loss to No. 25 Charlotte on Friday night, the Minutemen won their first road game of the season against George Washington on Sunday afternoon with a 3-0 win – their largest margin of victory since 2008 – despite being outshot 11-7.
Senior goalkeeper Brian Frame, who rebounded after giving up three goals to the 49ers on Friday, recorded his fifth shutout of the year, despite playing with a pulled quad; an injury he sustained in last weekend’s loss to Temple, according to assistant coach Devin O’Neill.
Defenseman Matt Keys scored twice early, both times off of assists from sophomore forward Josh Schwartz.
In the 10th minute, Schwartz belted a corner kick in front of goal, where the lanky 6-foot-4 sophomore was waiting before he bent over and headed it past Colonial goalkeeper Luke Farrell.
Less than 15 minutes later, Schwartz took advantage of a free kick from about 30 yards out, and the pair connected again as Keys dove between two defenders and headed in his second goal of the game, and third of the season.
In the 33rd minute, Schwartz added a goal to his two assists. Connor DeVivo sent a ball up the middle, which Schwartz took off his chest and tapped past Farrell for his team-leading fifth goal of the year.
After securing their top goal-scoring performance of the year only a third of the way through the game, the Minutemen held back and played defensively for the rest of the game, which they did effectively enough to help Frame hold onto the shutout.
Although O’Neill felt their play seemed to decline after the first half, just as it has been in previous weeks, he felt fortunate to come home with a road win on the team’s résumé.
“The guys did a great job coming out very quickly. … The performance was just OK in the second half,” O’Neill said. “George Washington had a couple of near misses off of a couple of restarts which would have been unfortunate, but all in all a good result and a really important win for us.”
Minutemen downed by 49ers
UMass faced arguably its toughest competition of the year on Friday as it traveled to Charlotte to face the nationally-ranked 49ers, and the outcome was not pretty.
Midfielder Darby Owen and forward Giuseppe Gentile had two goals apiece, while the Minutemen only had one shot on goal as Charlotte pounded UMass 4-0 in its worst loss of the season.
“You just gotta give a ton of credit to Charlotte,” O’Neill said. “They’re not only very talented, but they’re very organized and really work incredibly hard.”
The Minutemen knew going into the match that they would have to play flawlessly to come out on top.
“For us to get a good result right now against them playing that well, it just has to be a perfect game for us. Our kids battled hard so no complaints there,” O’Neill said. “Hopefully we can emulate some of the qualities that (were) on display because that was a very impressive performance for a college team.”
The Minutemen were outshot 22-2 and 11-1 on goal, and Frame was tested often, which was difficult for him as he has been nursing a pulled quad. According to O’Neill, Frame is having difficulty kicking the ball, but has been able to play through the injury.
He only gave up one goal through the first 69 minutes, but he then gave up two more in a span of about three minutes.
With around eight minutes left, Frame was taken out for the first time this season in favor of senior goalkeeper Kellen Rauch, who saw his first action as a member of the Minutemen, after transferring from UMass Dartmouth before his junior season.
“We were trying to reward Kellen a little since he’s a senior and hasn’t played, and we really didn’t want to re-aggravate Brian’s injury,” O’Neill said.
Next weekend, UMass holds its final two home games of the year, and with a dreadful 1-5-1 road record, O’Neill says they need to take advantage of the opportunity before heading back on the road for the final two games of the regular season.
“We probably need (three wins out of the four remaining) to be assured a place in the playoffs,” O’Neill said. “It is a great opportunity to play at home because our guys enjoy it and we have been tough to play at home and we hope that that continues.”
Taylor Snow can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @taylorcsnow.
