Monmouth men’s soccer continued their strong opening to Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference play by beating the Iona Gaels 1-0 at Hesse Field on The Great Lawn last Wednesday, improving their overall record to 6-3-1 and their MAAC record to 2-0-0, while the visitors dropped to 5-4-1 overall and 1-1-0 in MAAC contention.
“I feel really good about it [the win],” said Head Coach Robert McCourt, whose team racked up their fourth straight win Wednesday night. “First half I thought we were the better team, second half I thought they were the better team. You get to that stage where you have to somehow grind out ways to win in college soccer, and the first three games of the year we were finding ways to lose. Since those first three games, we’re earning games for sure but we’re finding ways to win and that’s the sign of a good team.”
Iona created the first close chance of the match when a ball was fizzed into the area from the left-hand side. Freshman forward Daniel Huertas had a tap-in, but his shot from point-blank range was right at junior goalkeeper Eric Klenofsky, who reacted quickly to make the save.
After winning the ball off an opponent, freshman midfielder Anderson Asiedu made his way down the field before slipping a through-ball in to junior forward Dave Nigro. Nigro’s left-footed shot from inside the area sailed just over the top left corner.
In the 35th minute, MU took the lead through sophomore midfielder Andrew Gee. The ball was brought to the corner by redshirt sophomore midfielder Colin Stripling, who found his way out of trouble and dished it to senior defender John Egan. From the right corner of the box, Egan sent in a low drive that was slotted into the back of the net by Gee.
“I’d say we had a good win,” said Gee, whose goal would prove to be the game-winner. “Conference games like this are tough, scrappy, and you just gotta’ dig it out to get the win. We knew coming into this game that this would be a difficult one. Iona’s generally a good team, so we just had to put our heads down and get through this”.
Minutes later, a header off an Iona corner kick from freshman defender Humbert Ferrer flashed just wide of the far post.
In the early goings of the second half, crisp passing between Iona’s junior midfielder Oscar Gonzalez and sophomore forward Marcos Nunez led to a chance, but Nunez’ shot tailed wide right.
Soon after, a long shot from the visitors gave Klenofsky some problems. The keeper bobbled it, allowing another shot from Huertas to ensue as the ball broke loose in the box. Klenofsky made a double save to keep Iona quiet, and senior defender David Acuna Camacho eventually came to the rescue and cleared the ball. Less than a minute later, Iona pressure continued as a close range volley from freshman midfielder Daniel Ocana Garcia went wide.
In the 64th minute, a Monmouth corner was parried away from danger by the keeper, but it fell to freshman defender Zachary Pereira, whose shot was blocked and then cleared by the Iona defense.
Saves from Klenofsky in both the 72nd and 85th minutes kept Iona at bay, leading the Hawks to victory and the Monmouth goalkeeper to his 26th career clean sheet.
“Today was definitely a team effort, Eric [Klenofsky] was solid again,” said McCourt. “I’m really impressed with Andrew Gee because Andrew came on in the season late for us and was a big difference-maker for us when we had a lot of injuries last year, and again today he came on as a sub and he changed the game for us.”
The Hawks built on the win by defeating Siena on Saturday night, also at home. A pair of assists from senior defender Derek Luke and goals from Nigro and freshman defender Danny Figarella guided MU to a 2-0 triumph. The Hawks improved their record in MAAC play to 3-0-0 and their overall record to 7-3-1, while the Saints fell to 2-1-0 and 3-6-2, respectively. Saturday’s shutout of Siena was Monmouth’s sixth of the season.
The Hawks are back in action tonight, against interstate rivals Rider University in Lawrenceville, NJ at 7 p.m.
PHOTO COURTESY of Monmouth Athletics
