Box Score PLYMOUTH, N.H. – In just the second year of the Jake Beverlin era, men's soccer (12-4-1, 5-0-1 Little East) has climbed to the top of the Little East Conference mountain as they earned the title of regular season champions with an impressive 2-0 win over Plymouth State University (5-9-1, 3-2-1 Little East) Sunday afternoon the New Hampton School.
Sunday's victory marked perhaps the most historic win in the program's long history as the Beacons continued to roll through their conference opponents. With an Eastern Connecticut State University loss yesterday afternoon, all the Beacons had to do was pick-up at-least a tie to be named the outright LEC regular season champs. The loss also gave the Beacons the number-one seed throughout the conference tournament, which UMass will be appearing in for the first time since 2006.
The contest got off to a slow start for the Beacons as they had trouble early-on playing on the quick synthetic turf field. With the field still damp from all the rain that has hit New England, the ball was difficult to possess. However, once UMass was able to get their feet under them, they immediately began spreading the field, which has been one of the key factors to their historic season.
Plymouth State's defense did a good job at limiting the Beacons chances for most of the opening half. The Beacons had two of their best chances on direct kicks that missed the mark by just a couple of inches on both attempts. It was not until the 38th minute that UMass ended the scoreless draw with Pedro Dasilva (Fogo, Cape Verde) laying a perfectly placed shot to the far post. Senior Marcus Pizzetti (Malden, Mass.), set-up the junior forward after making a great play in the middle-third of the field, which spread the Panthers defense.
Pizzetti, would lay a perfect through ball to Dasilva, and with a strong attacking touch forward the Cape Verde native would register by-far the most important game-winning goal of his college career.
UMass would go into the halftime break with the 1-0 lead, and led the first 45 minutes in shots 5-2.
After the break, the Panthers tried to catch the Beacons sleeping, which they nearly did twice. Luckily the Beacons defense and junior goalkeeper Alfonso Rosales (Revere, Mass.) managed to hold off the early pressure by the Panthers to keep the score at 1-0.
For the Beacons second and final goal of the match, Luis Mattos (Sete Lagoas, Brazil) would drive a long hard shot to the far post in the 60th minute to make it a two-goal affair. Once that goal found the back of the net, any momentum the Panthers were looking to build completely went away.
UMass would continue to pressure Plymouth State for the remainder of the contest, and with time quickly counting down they knew they were about to make history. Once the clock hit zero, the Beacons rushed the field knowing that they had accomplished something that no other UMass Boston men's soccer team had done before them.
On the day, the Beacons led the Panthers in total shots (12-6) and corner kicks (7-3). Rosales made just two stops to earn his fourth shutout of the year, and the team's eighth overall which ties the program record. The junior goalkeeper now sits just one win away from becoming just the third 20-win goalkeeper in program history, as he recorded his 19th win on Sunday.
The Beacons return to action on Wednesday when they travel to Mass. Maritime Academy for a 7 p.m. non-conference match.
