Georgia State Men's Soccer: Trio of Late Goals Leads Panthers to 4-1 Win
ATLANTA – Behind three second-half goals, the Georgia State men’s soccer team topped North Florida 4-1 en route to the Panthers first win of the season. Freshman Jad Elkhalil bagged the game-winner in the 71st minute before Aaron Jones and Amiri Abraham added goals of their own to secure the comfortable victory.
“Tonight’s win was massive and it feels amazing” head coach Brett Surrency said after the big win. “We have been positive within the team but we have started slowly this year. No one was panicking but it was still important for us to score out first goal. From there we wanted that momentum to carry us to our first win and now hopefully we can build on this victory going forward. Hopefully we have more of these to come.”
GSU took a 1-0 lead in the 10th minute on an own goal by Osprey defender Diogo Quirino. The Panthers played a dangerous ball of the top of the North Florida defense and Quirino tried to head the ball to his goalkeeper but there was miscommunication and the ball went past the keeper and rolled into his own net.
Both teams continued to attack over the next 20 plus minute but it was North Florida who scored to tie the match 1-1 after 32 mintues. A low cross from the left was deflected around in the box. The ball fell to Christian Pedroza, who fired a low shot into the bottom left corner.
The Panthers had two more chances in the final five minute of the half but both shots were too high.
At the break Georgia State held a 4-2 shot advantage and took both corner kicks of the first period but both teams were level on the scoreboard.
GSU started the second half fast forcing North Florida keeper Juanes Fajardo to make a save on a dangerous header by Conor Acheson in the 52nd minute. Jad Elkhalil nearly found the back of the net on the ensuing rebound but his shot was deflected and rolled harmlessly wide of the left post.
The Panthers finally grabbed a 2-1 lead in the 71st minute when Jad Elkhalil scored his first career goal for Georgia State. Stephen McGill found Elkhalil, who was able to get past the last defender and beat the goalkeeper with a low shot.
“Jad did tonight what good strikers do, they only need one chance,” Surrency said about the freshman. “He got himself into a good position, the ball fell to his feet and he put it away. He has been peppering the goal all season and he needed that one to get the monkey off his back. We expect Jad to be a very good player for us, not just this season but in the years to come.”
Two minutes later, GSU doubled their lead when Aaron Jones curled a perfect free kick around the wall and into the top right corner of the net from just outside the 18-yard box.
However, the Panthers were not done. In the 76th minute, Amiri Abraham took the ball from the right wing, dribbled past four defenders to the top of the 18-yard box and then fired his shot over the keeper’s head and into the top right corner to give GSU a 4-1 lead.
“Both of those goals were earned through hard work on the defensive end and that was the beautiful thing about them,” Surrency said. “It is easy to preach hard work but it is a lot easy for them to buy in when they see the fruits of their labor. That goal was great for Amiri because he needed that. As for Jones, that is what he does. Set pieces are his forte. Whenever he is standing over a set piece we expect it to go in.”
North Florida had one final chance in the 89th minute but it went begging and Georgia State clinched the 4-1 win.
GSU dominated the second half. The Panthers had the majority of procession and outshot North Florida 9-5.
Overall in the match, Georgia State took nearly twice as many shots (13-7) and four more corner kicks (5-1).
CJ Cochran earned his first win of the season for GSU after recording two saves on seven total shots faced.
The Panthers improve to 1-3-0 this season while the Ospreys drop to 2-3-0.
Georgia State returns to the field on Tuesday, Sept. 16 to host Presbyterian. Kickoff is set for 6 p.m. at the GSU Soccer Complex.
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NJIT and Fordham Play 1-1 Draw
NEWARK, NJ—There was little to separate NJIT and visiting Fordham in men’s soccer Saturday and the teams played to a 1-1 tie through 110 minutes on Lubetkin Field at Mal Simon Stadium.
Both teams are 2-2-1 after the double overtime match that was played on a cool overcast day with intermittent mist and rain,
The Rams scored their goal in the first half and the Highlanders leveled things late in the second half before the teams played another half hour to end in the tie.
Freshman Jannik Loebe got the Rams on the board with his first college goal in the 29th minute. Loebe received a pass from senior Andres Penfold, who had carried to the left of the penalty spot. Penfold flicked a short pass farther left to Loebe, whose short ground shot went between the legs of Christian Foust as the NJIT keeper was dropping into a split in a bid to cut off the angle on the short shot.
NJIT drew even in the 80th minute on a header by senior Marko Drljic, assisted by freshman Phillip Costa. The rookie earned his first college assist after a hard run with the ball down the left wing. Slowing down in the left corner, he centered a text book cross to Drljic on the door step. So precise was the pass that Drljic did not need to leave his feet to head it in.
Reflecting the scoreboard, the shots were close, with Fordham holding a slight 18-16 lead in total attempts and a 6-5 advantage in shots on goal.
Each goalkeeper, Fordham senior Sean Brailey and Foust, the NJIT sophomore, posted identical lines of 110 minutes played, four saves and one goal allowed. The Highlanders also had a “team save” on a Fordham shot into an open net that was re-directed to safety by sophomore defender Jonathan Onyeaka.
The best early chance came in the 14th minute when Fordham’s Andres Penfold, one of two brothers on the Rams squad, managed to stay onside and run onto a long pass. Finding himself one-on-one with NJIT’s Foust, who came off his line, Penfold was stopped twice. First, Foust came off his line and made a sliding save at Penfold’s feet. However, Penfold, kept going forward, got off another shot that was kept out of the open goal by Onyeaka, who came back into the play and slid at an angle, clearing the spinning ball backward and out of play over the end line.
Trailing 1-0, NJIT strung together a pair of quick passes on a break in the 55th minute, but Danny Cordeiro’s angling shot went wide and lost steam along the wet surface. A charging Eugene Listwan tried to run onto the ball at the far post, but it went over the line just out of his reach.
Drljic, the eventual goal scorer for NJIT, hit the post in the 72nd minute, firing from an extreme angle and hitting the near post high from outside the box on right wing.
Seven minutes into overtime, Fordham took two dangerous shots in a flurry, but Foust was equal to the task, stopping both. First, Ole Sanchez hit a hard shot from the left side of the box that Foust stopped without controlling it. Mike McNamara was there on the rebound, but Foust made a second deflection and then dove forward to cover up.
NJIT, which has played two matches of a five-game home stand, is slated to host LIU Brooklyn on Wednesday at 7 pm on Lubetkin Field at Mal Simon Stadium.