Sasho Cirovski is the coach of the USA's top-ranked college soccer team. He'll be earning his money today and tomorrow as the University of Maryland prepares for a game Tuesday night against Lehigh. The Mountain Hawks will take to the pitch at Maryland's Ludwig Field with an unimpressive 4-10-0 record, but in Lehigh's case, these numbers are deceiving. Three of the four wins are in Lehigh's last three games, including road victories at Yale and Navy and Sunday's 1-0 home win over Holy Cross. The fourth Lehigh win came against Penn State of the Big Ten. Left unstated is the fact that the Hawks are playing their best soccer of the season, and Maryland, coming off their biggest win and facing another emotional ACC contest Saturday night against Clemson, are going to be tempted to look past Lehigh, a team they beat soundly last season in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Considering their record, Lehigh's defense has been nothing short of amazing. Only twice all season has their opponent scored more than two goals, and one of those was a 3-2 overtime loss at St. Peter's. Two of their losses have been to Brown and Georgetown, teams that have been ranked in the Top 25 all season long. In fact, the Georgetown loss, by a 2-0 score, came in Washington, D.C. on October 9, and it was the last loss suffered by Lehigh. By the same token, the Mountain Hawks have trouble putting the ball in the net. Only twice have the Hawks scored more than once in a game. The first was the aforementioned 3-2 loss at St. Peter's. The second was the victory at Navy on October 13.
Lehigh's strategy will doubtless be to bottle up the Maryland offense by jamming the box with extra defenders. If the Mountain Hawks can keep the game scoreless they will look to score on a counter-attack, especially if the Terps midfield pushes forward with abandon. Hawk coach Dean Koski said after the win on Sunday that his team has spent extra time practicing 'front-of-the-net' scrum situations, and the practice paid dividends for the Hawks against Holy Cross. The winning shot in the 83rd minute came out of a mad scramble in front of the Holy Cross net.
Friday night the Terps edged No. 2 North Carolina, 1-0 in overtime. That game pitted the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country, and the first and second place teams in the powerful ACC. That Maryland even got the game into overtime is a testament to their Sophmore Keeper, Keith Cardona. Cardona stopped Tar Heel Senior Robert Lovejoy's penalty kick with just over one minute left in regulation to keep the game scoreless and send it into overtime. The save by the 6'4" New Jersey native was all the more incredible because the rebound of the penalty shot went onto the foot of Carolina's Verneri Valimaa, who launched a hard shot at the far post just as Cardona was scrambling back to his feet. Cardona, however, dove back into the mud in front of the Maryland goal and caught Valimaa's shot clean, sending the 7,000-plus Terrapin fans into a wild celebration. In overtime, and with time running out in the first stanza, Senior Patrick Mullins fired a hard shot to the left of Carolina Keeper Scott Goodwin, and Terp Freshman Tschillo Tshuma - running hard to the end-line after passing to Mullins - directed it into the back of the net, ending an extremely hard-fought, tense game in Maryland's favor.
Cirovski has to dig into his bag of Coaching tricks to get his lads up for the Lehigh game. Digging past the Hawk's won-loss record will help.
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