Men’s soccer delivers a much-needed response following a loss in their conference opener.
They are back. After a frustrating New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) debut loss, the men’s soccer team bounced right back last Wednesday night with a thrilling 2-1 victory against Kean University. Despite the first loss of the season lingering in the air and pressure to keep up the undefeated streak at home, players focused on the task at hand — bringing home a win.
“I think we just kind of came together as a team,” freshman Pierre Soumeillant told The Montclarion. “In the locker room, we were saying, ‘We can’t do that again.’ We have to move forward from this as a team, and I think that’s what we did here.”
Montclair State University and Kean were going at it in the first half, constantly intercepting passes and drawing fouls to force the ball downfield to the opponent’s goal. With the first 45 minutes going scoreless, Head Coach Todd Tumelty changed strategy at the half to thwart Kean’s offensive attempts.
“We changed a little bit formationally,” Tumelty said. “They had an extra guy in midfield, so we threw one of our wingers into the midfield to defend them, and we created a lot more turnovers that way. It was a good switch of tactics, and then just executing how we execute.”
"They had an extra guy in midfield, so we threw one of our wingers into the midfield to defend them, and we created a lot more turnovers that way,” head coach Todd Tumelty said of the adjustments made during a comeback win over Kean. Syd Boni | The Montclarion Photo credit: Syd Boni
Kean took charge at the beginning of the second half, scoring their only goal within 48 seconds of returning to the pitch.
“For the use of better language, I was like, ‘Crap,’” Soumeillant said. “We lost to [New Jersey City University], we need to win this game. Like I said, it was scary. I was kind of like, ‘We need to get a goal here.’”
However, Soumeillant had no doubt that his teammates would make the comeback.
With ten minutes left and a chance to tie the game, junior Josh Virgil swiftly passed the ball from the edge of the box to freshman Tomas Monteiro, who took the shot and scored the tying point. Five minutes later, Kevin Contreras would bring up the score 2-1 to secure the win for the Red Hawks.
Monteiro, along with his teammates, felt good after the goal, but knew the job was not finished until the clock hit zero.
“We’re up right now 2-1, five minutes left,” Monteiro said. “I’m like, let’s go lock it down, let’s get the W, let’s end it off on a good streak.”
Soumeillant also made his collegiate debut in the team’s NJAC comeback match, recording four saves throughout the whole 90 minutes.
“Pierre’s done a really good job for us,” Tumelty said. “All of our goalkeepers have worked really hard. He was second on the depth chart, and we thought it was an opportunity to give him a start and see what it was like and try to give him a full 90 minutes, and we’ll kind of see where we go from here.”
Soumeillant admitted to The Montclarion, “I was a little nervous coming up to the game. Like, I wasn’t really talking, but I think I did well, and we did well as a team.”
The coaching staff instills in their young team a constant drive to improve and maintain the momentum of performing at a high level. Every individual win is not enough, not until they are pulling up to the championship match and walking away with the trophy.
“We just have to keep getting better,” Tumelty said. “We have 29 new players on this team, so I think each day is a learning day and hopefully they’ve learned some things about the conference and that, you know, everyone’s out to win games and, you know, they’re going to get your best effort.”
“We’re building off these key games that we’re winning with our grit, our effort,” Monteiro added. “We have to keep going through the season when we play Rowan, when we play Stockton, when we get to the NJAC tournament. We keep this grit up, don’t get too cocky, stay humble, and just play one half at a time, get a couple goals, [and] lock it down.”
The team spared no time locking in for their match against TCNJ on Saturday, ready to take on a strong conference competitor.
“Anyone can compete on any given day,” Tumelty said. “So it’s hard to go on the road and get three points. But I think that’s what we have to do. We have to figure out a way to get those points, and we lost a couple points over at Jersey City, so we’ve got to find ways to dig and get the rest of the three that we need for Saturday.”
The head coach of men's soccer, Todd Tumelty. Photo credit: Photo courtesy of Montclair State Athletics
