DURHAM, N.H. – The No. 17 University of New Hampshire (UNH) men’s soccer team (2-0-1, 1-0-1) tied the University of Vermont (0-0-1, 0-0-1) 0-0 on Friday afternoon at Wildcat Stadium after 110 minutes of play. 160 students were in attendance as part of a pilot program, a number of limited student tickets were made available for the game.
Tensions seemed high in this tilt as neither team wanted to give one-another any sort of breathing room. Vermont played tough hard-nosed defense that gave UNH fits at times. UNH was able to control a lot of the possession early on but were only able to generate a few offensive opportunities.
The first came from sophomore Bilal Kamal who sprinted past the UVM defense, but senior goalkeeper Nathan Silveira challenged him making it a tough angled shot. Kamal couldn’t get it on net.
UNH earned another chance after getting their first corner kick of the day. The cross was sent in and the Wildcats had a chance to rip a shot in; however, the shot went high over the crossbar and out of play.
UNH kept the pressure on and earned a penalty shot when senior Linus Fallberg was fouled in the box. Kimal stepped up to take the penalty shot for UNH. The sophomore shot the ball to the right side of the net as Silveira dove towards that side. Extending his arm out he made the save keeping it a 0-0 game.
After the penalty kick, chances were hard to come by as the physicality picked up and defense started getting tighter. The half ended still in a 0-0 tie with UNH putting three shots on goal while UVM failed to get any. The foul count at the end of the half was 10-10 with both sides really trying to force their will upon the other.
The second half was more of the same with UNH dominating the possession but unable to break through the UVM keeper. UNH added an additional two shots in the half and kept UVM without any shots on goal through regulation.
The first overtime was uneventful as neither team created any real opportunities nor couldn’t get a shot on goal. In double overtime UVM registered their first shot on goal but UNH graduate student Alejandro Robles was able to make the routine save keeping the score tied.
No team was able to break the 0-0 tie and that is how the contest ended. UNH was able to out chance UVM with five shots on goal and six corner kicks compared to the Catamounts two shots and two corner kicks.
Head coach Marc Hubbard seemed a little frustrated after the 0-0 tie.
“Obviously we want to score. We feel we’re better than that and we created enough chances with the corner kicks and the [penalty kick] from Kimal,” Hubbard said.
He added “The second half sort of opened things up for us and we were able to create more offense, but we just have to execute and finish to get the results.”
Next up for UNH is a matchup on March 19 against the Stony Brook Seawolves (1-2-1, 1-0-1) in another America East matchup.
Photo courtesy of China Wong.
