The No. 20 Massachusetts men’s soccer team defeated Evansville 2-1 in the opening round of the NCAA tournament, thanks to immense attacking contributions from Alec Hughes and Oliver Akintade. The pair steered UMass (11-3-5, 5-2-1 Atlantic 10) into the round of 32.
As the match hit the 20th minute mark, left back Mike Willis played a ball down the wing in favor of Akintade. Akintade wisely let the ball run and used his pace to gather possession. He took three small touches on his right foot, then exploded towards the Purple Aces’ (11-7-3, 4-3-1 Missouri Valley) net. Just before he entered the penalty box, he was dragged down from behind.
Hughes grabbed the ball and placed it down at a near-impossible angle on the edge of the area. With Evansville freshman goalkeeper Michal Mroz cheating at the near post, Hughes strode up to the ball and pinged the free kick directly into the top right corner. Despite the 17 bodies crowded inside of the confined area, Hughes curled a stunner around every last one of them.
“[Hughes’] goal was a terrific individual effort,” head coach Fran O’Leary said … “[Hughes] will always score goals, but what impressed me today was his attitude. Just from the beginning, his work ethic, his mentality was superb. You could see he wanted to carry the team today and that’s an attitude we’ll need to take into the next game.”
The belter into the upper 90 sent Hughes past the half-century mark in goal-scoring for the Minutemen. He recently became the UMass all-time leading scorer and each tally he scores in this dark horse tournament run will only increase the brand-new record.
Akintade terrorized the Purple Aces’ backline nearly each and every time he touched the ball. Just as he created the set piece for Hughes’ goal, he set up the eventual game-winner from open play.
Alex Geczy laced a goal kick into Evansville territory, where it was nodded along and brought down by forward Johan Feilscher. Hughes then played Akintade into space on the left flank, a position simply no defender wishes to find themselves one-on-one. Akintade danced past the fullback seemingly effortlessly and rolled an inch-perfect cross towards Andrew Ortiz. Ortiz made absolutely no mistake placing the finish into the bottom right corner.
Akintade remained the most active Minutemen attacker at nearly all times throughout the match. Moments after his assist, he made a bewitching run fueled by sheer confidence. His first victim ended up on one knee after lunging for the ball and only coming up with air. Akintade proceeded to swerve past the next challenger and beat a third defender before the Purple Aces finally put the fire out. His swift footwork combined with an abundance self-trust makes for a difficult player to knock out of rhythm.
“[Akintade] is a very, very good player, we were fortunate to get him from a Division III program, there’s a lot of very good players playing Division III college soccer,” O’Leary said. “He was superb today, he won the free kick for the first goal, then he obviously got an assist on the second. So, big contributions from him [Thursday].”
The victory over Evansville marks the first NCAA tournament win for UMass since it defeated Illinois Chicago to advance to the 2007 College Cup. The Minutemen lost all three of their previous tournament-opening matchups, most recently in 2020.
With Akintade pulling the strings and Hughes scoring at a historic clip, UMass has a legitimate opportunity to make a Cinderella run in the 2024 tournament. The Minutemen will need the experienced center back duo of Matt Fordham and Aidan Kelly to continue to make life hard for the opposition. Throughout the season, the squad has looked most lively when the defense transitions seamlessly into the offense.
UMass will next pay a visit to Philadelphia to battle Penn in the second round of the NCAA tournament. The Quakers own the No. 6 overall seed in the tournament with a 14-3-1 record. The Sunday, Nov. 24 match will kick off at 5 p.m.
Cameron Pellegrino can be reached at [email protected].
