ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Junior forward
Baba Kallie put the home side up early and the Navy men's soccer team held the vaunted UMBC offense to just one goal, as the Midshipmen and Retrievers played to a 1-1 draw Wednesday night at the Glenn Warner Soccer Facility.
Wednesday marks the fifth-straight tie at home for Navy dating back to Sept. 4, as the Mids moved to 4-3-6 on the season. Their six draws this season set a program record, with no other squad in Navy's 102 years as a varsity program tallying more than five ties in a season.
Entering the game with the seventh-most team goals in the NCAA and the individual national leader in points-per-game, UMBC left Annapolis with a record of 8-4-2 overall.
"Tonight was a really good up-and-back game," said head coach
Tim O'Donohue. "It was a good performance from our team, and I'm very pleased with how our back-four defenders played against two excellent forwards. Aside from Villanova next week, it's all about the final Patriot League games from here on out."
Both teams generated chances early with their possessions, with each side having a corner kick in the opening four minutes before Navy sophomore goalkeeper
Pierce Holbrook had to turn away a Hans Nesheim shot at 8'. A little over a minute later, sophomore forward
Noah Ward forced UMBC's Quantrell Jones to save a shot, while the ensuing corner kick led to an off-target header from freshman
Jalen Grant and junior midfielder
David Jackson put another shot high in the 11th minute.
The sides settled down for a few minutes, but the 20th minute saw Ward use some footwork to gain space from a defender near the right sideline and send a pass up to sophomore midfielder
Connor Walcott at the 18-yard line. Walcott fed it back to Ward, as Ward put another pass up to Walcott into the goal box and pulled Jones to the right post, opening Walcott to tap the ball across to Kallie, who got a UMBC defender to bite on a hesitation move before burying the shot to the left side for his fourth goal of the campaign.
Lasse Kelp put a shot over the net at 22', while Kallie nearly had another shot go in at 22' but Jones thwarted it from the right side of the penalty box and watched a shot from junior midfielder
Jason Aoyama go high shortly after on the following corner attempt.
A highlight-reel goal from Ismailcan Usta evened the scoresheet in the 26th minute, as the Retriever lasered a bending shot from over 25 yards out that found the top-left part of the net and outside the reach of a diving Holbrook.
Grant had another header opportunity at 32' off a corner kick that went high, while both teams had a shot blocked over the final 11 minutes of the opening half.
Each side had shots go off the mark in the opening 16 minutes of the second half before a string of three Navy corner kicks set Walcott up for a shot that sailed high at 67', with the sophomore midfielder putting two more shots to the left of the net in the 69th and 71st minutes.
Kelp tried to hand UMBC the lead at 76' from 25 yards out, but Holbrook stonewalled him with a dive to his left, and the ensuing corner kick had Ryan Becher miss to the left side in what would be the only shot of the game for the NCAA's top points-per-game player.
Jones stopped Ward again in the 83rd minute after the Midshipman got separation from a defender just inside the left side of the penalty box, and Jones got active again at 86' when he made a save on Walcott near the left post after junior midfielder
Cristian Coelho found a passing lane up to Walcott.
A late save from Holbrook on Taylor Calheira in the 89th minute set up one last push from Navy, but a corner kick from Jackson in the final 30 seconds was cleared out of play and time expired before he could line up a second corner kick.
The Midshipmen held the edge in both shots (15-12) and corner kicks (11-4), while the Retrievers committed nine fouls to Navy's six. Navy has now tallied double-digit shots in four-straight contests, while the 11 corners by the Mids are the most for a Navy team since Oct. 17, 2015 at Bucknell.
Navy briefly resumes Patriot League play on Saturday, Oct. 22 with a 1 p.m. match at Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., before closing out non-conference action on Oct. 25 at Villanova.
