Justin Kies
CONTRIBUTOR
The 17th ranked UNO Men’s Soccer team fought for another shutout victory on Sept. 8, at home against UC Riverside and improve to 5-0 on the season.
The Mavericks came out in the first half with a lot of energy and made it difficult for UC Riverside to make any offensive advancement. In a fairly back-and-forth first half, UNO didn’t allow Riverside a single shot and took nine of their own.
“I thought our first half was pretty good, we just weren’t aggressive enough in the final third but I thought we controlled the first half,” said UNO head coach Jason Mims.
Other than a few fouls and two corner kicks, there was not much offensive pressure coming from UC Riverside. The Mavericks went into halftime with the score tied at zero.
The second half of the match started off a bit more suspenseful when Riverside’s offense put some pressure on. Their first shot of the night came in the 49th minute and was wide left. UC Riverside then came right back a couple minutes later with two corner kicks that ended up being cleared by UNO’s goalie, Ugo Tritz.
Riverside seemed to have most of the momentum coming out of halftime, but that changed around the 57th minute with a beautiful slide tackle by UNO’s midfielder Cole Nelson. Shortly after the Maverick’s offense began to come alive with a couple shots on goal, they finally scored one in the 63rd minute off the leg of Jacob Weiler.
“The goal itself wasn’t a pretty goal by any means,” said Weiler, “it was a phenomenal service by Brahan that just got knocked down and I was just kind of lucky that I was standing there.”
UC Riverside began to look frustrated after UNO took a 1-0 lead and their offense reflected that frustration. Rattled and unable to get anything going, Riverside managed to get two yellow cards in the 69th and 83rd minute of the match. UNO’s defense maintained their 1-0 lead through the rest of the game and left Friday night with another win.
The Mavericks are now on a fivegame win streak and play again at Caniglia Field on Sept. 10 against Bradley and hope to improve to 6-0 on the season.
