Newburgh, NY - The University of Hartford men's soccer team remains unbeaten in the 2007 season, posting a 2-2 tie against the Marist Red Foxes at Mount St. Mary's College in Newburgh, NY. The Hawks goals came from Andreas Blamo and Kevin Hall, both in the first half. Hartford is now 1-0-1 overall and Marist is now 0-1-1 overall.
“Marist was a much better team then we expected,” said head coach Dan Gaspar. “We looked a little disorganized at times, but we have time to work on that before we head into conference play, sorting out a lot of things. We look very good and extremely dangerous as we work forward, but we need to work on the same explosiveness on the defensive side of the pitch.”
The game saw most of the scoring in the first 23 minutes of play, with the Hawks striking first. Blamo scored the opening goal unassisted as he worked through multiple defenders to take the sot which ricocheted off the post to score from inside of 18-yards.
Marist tied the score at one with their own goal, a head from Tyler DeBari. DeBari accepted a pass from Chris Nacca, placing his header to inside the left post. The Hawks would then retake the lead 5:30 later when Hall scored off a pass from Jamie Thomas. Hall took the shot from the right side in the final moments of the 23rd minute.
Hartford entered the halftime break with the slight advantage, after out shooting the Red Foxes 7-6. Hartford keeper Matt Glaeser recorded two saves in the first half, as did the Marist keeper, Marcelo del Rio.
The only scoring in the second half was the game tying goal from Shareif Ali, which came on a penalty kick in the 72nd minute. The Hawks had three chances at the goal over a four minute span just prior to the Marist penalty kick. The first two shots came from Bojan Delibasic and the third from Kevin O'Donnell Shaw. All three were shots on goal and del Rio recorded saves on each.
“The second half we were under a lot of pressure, Matt (Glaeser) made a couple of good saves and despite playing a man down for the final seven minutes and all of overtime we stayed organized and kept the pressure on,” continued Gaspar.
Hartford had back-to-back shots in the first over time period, one in the 96th minute, one in the 97th. The first shot came from Daniel Antunez and was saved by del Rio. Delibasic took the second shot, forcing del Rio back into action. The Hawks also had a pair of corner kicks just prior to the final minute of play in the first overtime.
The second overtime saw a shot from Marist's Steven Morales go high in the third minute. Marist took two more shots, with Glaeser recording a save on one. Hartford took just one shot in the final 10 minutes, coming from Gary Muir. Muir's shot was the final save of the game for del Rio, who finished with 11 total saves. Glaeser finished with six saves for the Hawks.
Hartford will next be in action on Friday when they host St. Peter's College at 6:00 p.m. at Al-Marzook Field in the home opener.
