Men's Soccer Holds on to Beat Nyack, 2-1
Box Score BOXSCORE – Mercy vs. Nyack
DOBBS FERRY, N.Y. (Sept. 12, 2011) – On Monday evening the Mercy College men's soccer team hosted the international-laden Nyack College coming off a hard-luck loss just two days prior. Thanks to two goals in the first half, the Mavericks held on for the remainder of the match to preserve the victory, improving their record to 2-1-1 and dropping Nyack to 3-2.
Mercy took control of the game quickly, pushing the attack both up the middle and on the wings and were rewarded with a goal in just the 14th minute. Junior forward Ernest Afful (Columbus, Ohio) made one of his several impressive hustle plays to center the ball into the box, where graduate student Ben Latchford (Birmingham, England) saw his first two point-blank attempts blocked before finally slotting it in for the lead.
Mercy kept the pressure up throughout the half behind a solid partnership between Afful and Latchford up top and great wing play from freshman Ryan Flynn (Valley Stream, N.Y.) and sophomore Mustaffa Alobeidy (Baghdad, Iraq) and found another goal in the 34th minute, when freshman back Tafari Newman (Bronx, N.Y.) hurled a long throw-in into the box. Freshman forward Roberto Dashi (Nyack, N.Y.), just minutes into his debut, flicked it across on a header to senior midfielder Bujar Lajqi (Bronx, N.Y.) who smashed it home for the 2-0 lead.
Mercy weathered only a few real chances from Nyack early in the second half, but as the clock wound down the Warriors became more desperate and pushed further up the field, resulting in closer opportunities. They finally connected on one in the 75th minute when senior back Martin Narvaez (Sydney, Australia), barely having returned to the field after being attended to for several minutes with apparent breathing issues, sent a ball in to sophomore midfielder Arturo Garcia (Guayaquil, Ecuador), who knocked it off a Mercy defender and past junior goalkeeper Nick Papas (Castleton, N.Y.), who had just made a brilliant punch save on a looping deflection, to cut the lead in half.
With a quarter of an hour to play, the Warriors did their best to find holes in the Mercy back line but could only get through on the occasional breakaway and the Mavericks were able to outlast their opponents for the victory.
Papas ended the night with four saves in net, while Latchford led the attack with three total shots, two of which were on goal.
Please tune in to News 12-Westchester tonight around 10:20 p.m. for highlights and interviews from the game.
Head Coach Chris Smith and the Mavericks return to action Wednesday when they travel to Lodi, N.J. to take on Felician College. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m.
