BALTIMORE, Maryland November 22, 2013 - For 68 minutes, Navy and Virginia Commonwealth battled in a tense scoreless deadlock, and then in eight magical minutes it was over. Navy exploded for three goals in eight minutes deep into the second half Thursday night in Richmond, and went on to beat a very good Virginia Commonwealth side, 3-0. Geoff Fries, who scored his first goal of the season in Navy's last match, a 2-0 win over Holy Cross in the Patriot League Championship game, quickly scored two more on Thursday. Both goals came after Martin Sanchez opened the scoring in the 68th minute to put Navy on top, 1-0. Three minutes later Fries scored his first goal of the night, and five minutes after that he scored again. Gavin Snyder made four saves in recording the shut-out, four days after he shut out the Crusaders to put Navy in the national tournament. Navy now travels to Winston-Salem, North Carolina to face Wake Forest on Sunday evening.
There were some 16 first round games on Thursday, and three were decided by more than one goal, proving again how much parity there is in college soccer. Seven of the games went into overtime and five ended in a Penalty Kick Shootout. In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Omar Holness scored the only goal of the game four minutes into the first half and the Tar Heels held on to beat South Florida, 1-0. North Carolina will now face the University of California at Irvine on Sunday evening at the Anteaters home field on the West Coast. In Akron, Ohio the Zips built up a seemingly insurmountable 3-0 advantage on defending National Champ Indiana, then watched in near horror as the Hoosiers scored twice within a minute to turn a rout into a nail-biter. But Akron closed the door after Dylan Lax and Jacob Bushue scored at the 52 and 53 minute marks of the second half. The final was 3-2 Akron. The Zips now travel to Milwaukee to face over-seeded Marquette and its five losses on Sunday night. In Clemson, South Carolina a surging Elon University Soccer Side outscored Clemson, 4-1 in penalty kicks to advance to a Sunday night showdown in Los Angeles, California against No. 1 ranked and top-seeded UCLA. Phoenix Keeper Nathan Dean stopped three shots throughout regulation and overtime, then allowed only one of five penalty kicks to count during the shootout. Delaware's season came to an end in Newark when St. John's Jordan Rouse scored a golden goal nine minutes into overtime. The two sides finished regulation time tied at 1-1. In Philadelphia, the Quakers of Penn allowed a 1-0 lead to get away, then lost a shootout, 3-1 to Providence. The Friars now travel to College Park, Maryland to challenge No. 4 Maryland. In Storrs, Connecticut the Huskies' Mamadou doudou Diouf scored in the 81st minute to lead his side over Quinipiac, 2-1. Now the Huskies travel to Catonsiville, Maryland to face UMBC on Sunday evening. In other first round games, Old Dominion crushed Drexel, 5-1, Coastal Carolina scored two first half goals to defeat East Tennessee State, 2-0, George Mason surprised William and Mary by winning a shootout, 4-2. The two teams played to a 2-2 tie in regulation, but neither scored during two ten minute overtime periods, leading to the shootout. In Louisville, the Cardinal survived a classic defensive struggle with upset=minded Denver. The Pioneers battled the homestanding Cardinal throughout 90 scoreless minutes of regulation and 20 scoreless minutes of overtime. In the shootout, the Cardinal eaked out a 3-2 advantage to survive and advance. On Sunday they will be in East Lansing, Michigan to play the Spartans of Michigan State. In State College Pennsylvania, Eli Dennis scored in the 37th minute and Andrew Wolverton recorded a shutout as the Nittany Lions beat back St. Francis of Brooklyn, 1-0. Penn State will now travel to Santa Barbara, California to play UC Santa Barbara on Sunday night. A third entry from the Big Ten, Northwestern, lost at home to Bradley. The Braves scored twice in the first half; Scott Davis scored first at the 6:09 mark, on an assist from Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year, Wojciech Wojcik. Wojcik himself scored the second, heading in a corner kick at 26:43. In between those scores, the Wildcats got on the board. Cole Missimo of Northwestern made a wonderful run down the right side of the pitch, then sent a beautiful feed into Nikko Boxall. Boxall one-timed the ball into the goal from only 7 yards out. For fifteen minutes the score was tied. But Wojcik, who was just getting started, put the Braves ahead and the lead lasted a long time. Halftime arrived and the visitors were still up. Then ten minutes of the second half passed and the Braves' lead stood. Twenty minutes passed and the Braves still lead. A full half hour of play in the second half came and went and Bradley remained ahead, 2-1. And then, late in the 77th minute Bradley was called for a foul and Chris Ritter of the Wildcats was selected to take the set play. The ball was 84 feet from the Brave Goal. Brian Billings, the Braves Keeper, made four saves for the game, including the seering shot that Chris Ritter took on the set play. The shot was so hard that Billings was unable to control the ball. He'd kept it out of the goal and protected the Brave lead - for now - but the ball bounced free in the box. Grant Wilson of Northwestern ran on to the ball and shot it passed Billings. With just over ten minutes left, the score was tied. It stayed tied to the end of regulation. Now the game moved into overtime and the air began to swirl with bad omens for the home team. Twice before Bradley had come to Northwestern to play soccer. On both of those occassions, the Braves left Evanston with a win. On this third sojourn, the result stayed the same. Once again it was the multi-talented Wojcik. He took a high ball a full 36 feet from the goal and headed it over Tyler Miller's head for the golden goal. It came six minutes and 47 seconds into overtime. Incidentally, with his assist on Bradley's first goal, Wojcik moved into a tie with Evansville's Faik Hajderovich for the Division I lead in that category. Both now have 14. The Braves now head west to Berkley, California to take on the California Bears. a team that was ranked number one for many many weeks this season. Bradley is now 14-6-2 while Northwestern completed its season at 10-8-2. California will come in to the second round game with a record of 12-4-2. A cynic might wonder how the Wildcats even got an at-large tournament berth with seven losses, while teams like Duke (9-5-8), University of Illinois at Chicago, i.e., UIC (16-4-0), Army (12-3-3). Gonzaga (10-6-3) and Furman (11-5-2) (including 4-1-2 in road games) did not get a a tournament berth. Go Figure! One of the more shocking results of the opening round was Seattle's victory over Creighton. The Blue Jays were in the Final Four last season and had equally high expectations this season. But on Thursday night the Red Hawks, with an RPI ranking of 123, lowest in the tournament, got two goals Miguel Gonzalez - one in the first half at the 31-minute mark and one in the second half at the 72-minute mark - to beat Creighton in Lincoln, 2-1. The Red Hawks (10-8-4), which according to the NCAA gained the school's first Division I postseason victory in any sport since 1964, advance and will travel a comparative 'hop, skip and jump' across town to face the second-seeded Washington Huskies (14-1-4), and winner of the Pac-10 tournament. Also on Thursday in the first round, Wisconsin just got by Milwaukee, 1-0 and Stanford beat Loyola Marymount in Penalty Kicks, 3-2, after playing the Lions to a 1-1 tie through regulation and overtime. Stanford advances to play CSU Northridge while Wisconsin will travel to South Bend, Indiana to play Notre Dame.
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