TEANECK, NJ -- The Fairleigh Dickinson men’s soccer team picked up its first victory of the season with a 1-0 victory over Lafayette Tuesday night at University Stadium. Freshman Simon Doherty scored off a rebound from Leopards’ goalie Nathan McDonald’s save in the 86th minute for the lone goal of the match. With the victory, the Knights improve to 1-1-0 on the season, while Lafayette begins its season 0-1-0.

FDU controlled much of the match, which featured numerous amounts of tense moments on and off the pitch. The Knights outshot the Leopards 16-6 and held a 6-3 advantage in corner kicks.

Freshman Jan Aubert had a chance early in the fifth minute, but his shot was turned away by McDonald. Later on in the 22nd minute, senior Antony Moore saw his from close range saved.

FDU had two more opportunities in the first half with shots inside the box, but Lafayette was able to get a defender in front to block the chances.

With under a minute to go before halftime, senior Jack McVey ripped a shot from about 10 yards out in front of the goal, and McDonald made a great save diving to his right to prevent the goal.

With the score tied at halftime, the Knights held a 7-2 advantage in shots, while attempting three corner kicks to none for the Leopards.

In the second half, FDU had numerous opportunities over the first 20 minutes to find the back of the net but could not convert as the Lafayette defense buckled down with McDonald making a couple more saves.

The Leopards started to put pressure on the FDU defense, which played great all night, over the final 20 minutes and challenged Knights’ goalkeeper Jacob Lissek. The junior was up to the task making a pair of brilliant saves to keep the game tied at zero.

At the start of the 82nd minute, McVey took a corner kick, and junior Nicholas Walker blasted a shot that bounced off the crossbar and landed in front of the goal. However, the ball was cleared out by the visitors.

Four minutes later, Moore took a shot from roughly 25 yards out that made McDonald make a tough save, but Doherty was in perfect position to clean up the deflection and found the back of the net for the Knights’ victory.

Lissek made three saves in goal, all in crunch time for FDU. McDonald was credited with five saves for Lafayette.

“That was a very intense game, and I thought we competed very well and deserved to win and dominated the game,” Head Coach Seth Roland said. “Sometimes in soccer you do not always win the games you dominate, but we grinded it out and finally found a winner.”

“We deserved it. I thought the guys competed very hard and responded very well to our opening-game disappointment. Now we can put that to rest, and this win should give us confidence with our upcoming game with NJIT. What we learned is that we have to grind it out and compete like this every moment of every game if we want to win and have a good year. We proved we can do it tonight, and we played very well and created numerous chances until we finally found the winner. I thought we played very well.”

The Knights will return to action on Saturday, Sept. 1 as they go on the road for the first time this season to take on in-state rival NJIT at 7 p.m. in Newark, N.J.
 

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