By Alvin Halimwidjaya
Fordham’s men’s soccer team came into its stretch of conference games with a winning streak dating back to the beginning of September. With four of it’s last six games being shutouts, it’s defense carried that momentum and confidence into it’s Saturday matchup against George Mason. It ended up playing to a 1-1 draw in a physical matchup that featured five yellow cards and 41 total fouls, maintaining its lossless streak but bringing it’s five-game winning streak to an end. Fordham’s record is now 6-2-2 overall.
George Mason opened the scoring in the 37th minute with an 18-yard shot that flew past junior keeper Rashid Nuhu into the center of the goal.
“The goal we conceded [to George Mason] was a tough goal to concede,” senior defender Matthew Lewis said. “It really wasn’t through the run of play. We were playing out of the back, we got caught and two passes later the ball’s in the back of our net. We didn’t really think about that one, [but] obviously we can’t get that loose.”
Fordham struck back in the 84th minute, with senior forward Jannik Loebe scoring off a rebound after his initial attempt was blocked by George Mason’s goalie. Going into overtime, the score remained deadlocked for the remainder of the game, despite three Fordham corner kicks and a saved attempt by junior forward Janos Loebe in the 107th minute.
The Rams still expect to stay in their defensive groove and hold opponents’ offenses off. “I think [the non-conference wins] were important for two reasons,” Lewis said. “First, the defense is getting confident and not allowing goals. I think it also gives confidence to our attackers. There’s not as much pressure for them to score in the first 15 minutes; they don’t need to set the pace [that early] if they know that as a team, we’re going to keep the game close for the full 90 minutes. It takes pressure off the team to score goals, because scoring goals is really tough.”
With seven more A-10 matchups coming up, the Rams need to stay focused if they want to repeat as conference champions.
“We’ve just got to go into every game playing like it’s our last,” Lewis emphasized. “I keep telling the guys, I keep using the word ‘desperation;’ they think it’s funny I use that word so often, but its one thing that I think is really important. You need to go into every game with a little desperation, that it could be your last and that you need to win. At the end of the day, we’ve only got eight conference games, and if you don’t win four of them, you never know if you’re going to make it [to the A-10 Tournament]. Then your season’s over, and as a senior, that’s really tough. This year, we have tons of seniors that don’t want their soccer careers to end, so there’s going to be a lot of people working towards that common goal. We’ve tasted winning twice, and we’ve tasted losing once, and when you taste losing, it really sucks. I think we’ve got that winning culture, and we really want that ring.”
The Rams’ next game will be at home when they face La Salle on Wednesday, Oct. 4 at Jack Coffey Field.
