Amherst, Massachusetts – Senior Borna Mikrich (Kutina, Croatia) The UMass Lowell Men’s Soccer Team (1-4-2, 0-0-0 AE) took on the Massachusetts Minutemen (5-0-3, 0-0-1 A10) at Radfield on Tuesday afternoon.
It was a graduate student who joined Mikulich in scoring Javier Torres (Málaga, Spain) added their own goals for the second time this season. Jonathan Ferreira (Ashland, MA) Dennis Petro (Michalovce, Slovakia) also added an assist.senior on the internet Jacob Heissel (Holliston, Massachusetts) made four saves in 90 minutes of action.
‘We knew it was going to be a fight,’ said head coach Kyle Zenoni“We had a great preparation for the conference and today we showed that we can compete with just about anyone in the country. I think the goals we scored during the game were great. We had some players recovering from injuries. It’s been great, the team as we move forward.”
The Minutemen started strong and put pressure on the Riverhawks early in the game. UMass Lowell scored the first shot of the game in his 2nd minute, but he was 1–0 behind in the 9th minute after Andrew Ortiz put the Minutemen on the board. Following the goal, the Massachusetts retained most possession, but the Riverhawks defense held up to the challenge, allowing only two shots over the next 12 minutes of play.
At 21 minutes, UMass Lowell got his first chance on the board and they took advantage of it. Situated on the far right of the field, Ferreira tied the game one by one by sending a cross pass straight in front of the net and setting Mikurici for a diving header. Four minutes later, Torres made a beautiful diving play in front of the net, heading into a pass from Petro to put the Riverhawks ahead 2-1.
The Massachusetts dominated possession for the rest of the half and beat the Riverhawks, but UMass Lowell continued to shut down the Minutemen’s offensive offense to maintain a one-goal lead heading into the break.
Upon exiting the locker room, the Massachusetts picked up where they left off, scoring two shots in the first five minutes of action. In the 55th minute, a goal from Matt Fordham put the Minutemen back on the board again to draw 2-2.
For the next 30 minutes, both teams continued their lockdown defense, holding each other to one shot. With his six minutes remaining in the game, the River his Hawks equalized in very similar fashion to their first goal of the afternoon. Ferreira threw a pass in front of the net before Mikurici got under and headed past the goalkeeper to score his second goal of the match. The lead was short-lived, however, as the Minutemen retaliated with an equalizer 30 seconds later. With five minutes remaining, neither team could score another goal and the match ended in a 3-3 draw.
The River Hawks will then return to Cushing Field for a friendly against the NJIT Highlanders on Saturday, September 24th at 7pm.