Crusaders Use Late Surge to Rally Past Johnson & Wales
IRVING, Texas – The University of Dallas men's soccer team triumphed over Johnson & Wales University (CO) 3-2 on Friday evening. The Crusaders (4-6-1, 2-1-1 SCAC) gained some late game magic when Brady McNamara (San Antonio, Texas) found the back of the net at the 89:12 mark after a nice feed from Tomas DePetris (Houston, Texas) to prevent Dallas from going to its second consecutive overtime match.
Both teams struggled offensively through most of the first half. UD broke the scoreless tie in the 42nd minute when Jose Martinez (Tegucigalpa, Honduras) passed a nice ball up ahead to Chase Reynolds (Southlake, Texas) who broke free and beat the keeper one-on-one to the goalie's left side. UD would take this 1-0 lead and momentum into halftime.
Six minutes into the second period Albara Mutleq scored to even the game with a nice strike. 10 minutes later Dylan Reimer then put the Wildcats up for the first time after Mutleq sit him up with the assist. UD kept fighting down the stretch putting several shots on or around goal making the JWU keeper work hard to keep the lead. Nat Kajiwara (Southlake, Texas) used his speed and dedication to dribble around the JWU defense and scored to even up the game at two.
As time ticked down both teams were hungry to grab the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) victory with big offensive attacks. Dallas finally got a breakthrough in the 90th minute of play as DePetris fed a ball to the left side of the goal, which McNamara found and struck the back of the net to put UD up with just seconds to play. JWU did get two more opportunities on net, but the Crusaders defense stood tough to grab its second conference win.
Dallas outshot JWU 24-17 on the evening. Caleb Strange (Argyle, Texas) notched three saves playing all 90 minutes in goal. Reynolds led UD with seven shots. Hunter Haugland (Bixby, Okla.) and DePetris both took three shots, placing one on goal. Several other UD players took multiple shots.
Reimer took five of the 17 shots for JWU. Zac Collins made eight saves playing the keeper position for the Wildcats.
UP NEXT
Dallas will continue its home stand on Sunday when Colorado College comes to Irving. Kickoff is scheduled for 12:00 p.m.