by Zack Downing, Staff Writer
The most essential strategy to having a great season in any sport is simple: defeat the teams that get in your way of victory.
The Corsairs men’s soccer team has done well so far, with coach Henry Almeida taking his crew to a 3-1 start.
The Corsairs began the 2016 season with a couple of away matches at Framingham State and Suffolk. They were both tight contests, but UMass Dartmouth came out on top in each game, with scores of 3-2 and 6-5 respectively.
On Thursday, they came back home to play Fitchburg State at Cressy Field. It may not have been easy to notice, but the Corsair’s home field had changed over the summer.
The old field has been removed and replaced with brand new turf for the 2016 season, and the grass looks fantastic. We can only hope the construction crews on campus fix their turf just as well.
Thursday night’s game began as well as the Corsairs could have hoped, with Peabody native John Correia scoring on the Fitchburg State defense in only one minute.
After just eight minutes and a few corner kicks, the Corsairs had put three points up on the board, courtesy of Austin Dias and Stephen Teixeira.
The home crowd couldn’t have been happier to see their team debut so strongly, and in under 10 minutes victory seemed ensured.
While their scoring slowed down after the beginning of the game, the Corsairs defense stayed tough. Throughout the whole match, the Fitchburg Falcons only attempted five shots on the net, and thanks to UMass Dartmouth goalkeeper Luis Carranza, none of them were successful.
If there was one thing that was imperfect about the game, however, it was the team’s four offside penalties, compared to Fitchburg’s zero. It didn’t matter much, though, as the final score of the match was 5-0, Corsairs on top.
Juniors Fabio Araujo and Haden Cordeiro both scored shortly after halftime, bringing the score up to five.
The Corsairs’ next game didn’t carry the same success, however. UMass Dartmouth hosted the game on September 10th against the Endicott Gulls.
It wasn’t as fast paced as the first game, with the first goal coming in the thirty-third minute by Endicott player Evan Couchot. That goal was actually the first time the Corsairs were behind at any point this season.
UMass Dartmouth would tie the score early in the second half with a score by Fabio Araujo. The rest of the game was played quite closely, but in the eighty-first minute the Gulls scored again, pulling ahead by one.
That’s how the match would end, with the final score halting at 2-1. Interestingly, the Corsairs got sixteen shots on net, which is more than double the amount of shots the Gulls took.
The difference in Saturday’s match ended up being the goaltenders, with Endicott’s Nick Weinstein making eight saves, and senior Luis Carranza not saving any shots successfully.
UMass Dartmouth will try to regain its momentum by playing Salve Regina on Cressy Field on September 14 at 6:30 p.m. Come out and support the team!