[4] Denver Earns 3-1 Win over Harvard

September 14, 2018

DENVER – Senior striker Andre Shinyashiki (Sao Paulo, Brazil) recorded the ninth multi-goal game of his career, including his third in six matches this season to lead the University of Denver men’s soccer team to a 3-1 victory over Harvard on Friday night at the University of Denver Soccer Stadium.

Shinyashiki, who entered the week leading the NCAA in goals (8) and game-winning goals (4), now has 10 on the season and five game-winners in six matches in 2018.

“I think we were outshooting them 10-0 at one point, so we did a great job of getting on top of the game,” head coach Jamie Franks said. “[We’re a] Little frustrated with the group for giving up too many free looks at our goal from fouls. We need more discipline there. Overall, we started five freshmen, so to be able to come in and dictate the game and play as well as we did was a good thing. Giving the goal up at 3-0 made the game more interesting than it needed to be, but there are a lot of learning lessons and growth opportunities from this match. The group needs to ask themselves what their ambition is. We’re very close, but there’s still so much work that needs to get done. If they are willing to challenge themselves and grow from a game like this, we’ll continue to get better each week.”

Shinyashiki’s ninth goal of the season came from classmate senior winger Kenny Akamatsu (Niigata, Japan) in the 24^th minute. Akamatsu picked off a Harvard pass in the middle of the field, took a couple touches and fed Shinyashiki in the left side of the box. Shinyashiki turned his defender and buried his 32^nd career goal into the bottom right corner to put the Pioneers in-front.

Redshirt-freshman forward Brooks Crawford (Greenwood Village, Colo.) scored the first of his collegiate career just over three minutes later to double the Denver advantage in the first half. Freshman centerback Callum Stretch (Encino, Calif.) played a pass across the midfield line to Shinyashiki, who slipped in Crawford behind the Harvard back-four to setup a 1v1. Crawford beat the keeper to his left for the first of his career. Shinyashiki’s assist was his second of the season and the 13^th of his career, while Stretch picked up his first career point with the helper.

Shinyashiki got to double digits in the goal column on the season off a well-constructed counter-attack from back-to-front. Freshman attacking mid Liam Johnson (Golden, Colo.) got the ball in the middle of the field to sophomore holding mid Jacob Stensson (Stockholm, Sweden) who switched the play to the Denver left to the run of Shinyashiki, who was left 1v1 with a Harvard defender. Shinyashiki curled in his 10^th of the year to the far post to put his career goal total at 33.

Harvard pulled one back on a free kick right from Sam Brown on 77 minutes, dipping it over the Denver wall and into the left side of the net.

Denver outshot Harvard 18-8 and took six of the match’s 10 corners.