Matt Newman is a junior on the NYU men's soccer team. He will share his thoughts in this space throughout the 2010 season.
Posted October 11
We are now at the beginning of our UAA season, and things are looking great for our team. We just got back from Cleveland, where we beat Case Western Reserve 2-0 on goals from Kyle Green and Paolo Luciano. The week before that, we tied the #8 ranked team in the nation, Rochester. At the moment, we are tied at the top of the UAA with four points.
It feels incredibly good to be playing this well. In my time at NYU, I have never been this close to the ultimate goal of winning the UAA. This season hasn’t been easy by any means, as we have had our fair share of adversity with injuries, absences, and bad performances. The way our team has responded has been fantastic. For every step backwards we take, it seems we take two steps forward the next time out. It makes for an extremely fun environment and we are all genuinely excited for the rest of the season to play out.
The most trying moment of our season so far was a 2-0 loss at home against Manhattanville. Manhattanville is a great team, and it didn’t seem like we were entirely up for the game (myself included). It was our worst performance of the season by far, as we struggled to possess the ball and keep our discipline on defense. We haven’t forgotten about that game, and we haven’t lost since. We are 3-0-1 since then, with wins over Hunter, Kean, and Case Western.
Another nice thing about this season is the recognition we seem to be getting from the NYU community. I think our success this season is largely due to the support we have received from students, teachers, and other fans that are interested in their school’s soccer team. Call us conceited, but we love seeing ourselves being recognized in the school newspaper and having people cheering for us even during away games in Cleveland. I guess a lot of it comes with the success. But, whatever the reason, it is nice to see and really motivates us to play well and to represent NYU the best we can.
Our next game is at home against Emory, and is without a doubt the most important game of our season so far. We are tied with Emory for first place in the UAA right now, so a win would go a long way towards our goal of winning the UAA outright and securing a NCAA Tournament bid. It will be a tough game, as it always is against a program like Emory, and should be competitive and fun for everyone involved. We hope to get the same support we have been getting all season for this game, which is at the College of Staten Island. Hope to see you all there.
Matt Newman is a junior on the NYU men's soccer team. He will share his thoughts in this space throughout the 2010 season.
Posted September 17
We have had five games since my last blog, and our season has started extremely well. After an opening 1-0 overtime loss to Stevens Tech, our team has found its groove and we have really come together.
Although we lost to Stevens, we played inspired and fought hard for 90 minutes. The game could have gone either way, and unfortunately they scored just two minutes into overtime. You got the feeling though, after leaving that game, that this was a different team and that this was going to be a different season. We all came in to practice that next week focused and hungry.
Our next two games were against CCNY and Baruch, teams that we were expected to beat. In the past, these are the games we have struggled with. We tended to play down to the level of our opponents and it got us into trouble on more than one occasion. Not this year, though. We beat CCNY 3-0 and Baruch 6-0 in a span of a couple of days.
Paolo Luciano (team-leading 6 goals and 14 points) and Niki Chow (2 goals) have been excellent additions to our team this year after transferring from Division 1 schools (University of Washington and Siena College, respectively). They have really stepped up for us this season, and it started with those games.
We then traveled to Pennsylvania to play Muhlenberg, who was ranked #25 in the nation at the time. After letting up a soft goal to begin the second half, we tied the game late and sent it to overtime. The team’s character really showed in that game and we battled all the way through double-overtime and came out with a tie on the road.
Our third game against a ranked team was our breakthrough game as a team. We played Richard Stockton, one of our bigger rivals, and won 2-1. We took the lead after Paolo chipped the keeper, but gave it up in the second half. Just six minutes later, Logan Smith gave us the lead again and we wouldn’t look back. It was the most important win of my NYU career, and you can sense the confidence that our team now has.
This season has been an amazing experience so far, and we are all committed to keeping the ride going.
Matt Newman is a junior on the NYU men's soccer team. He will share his thoughts in this space throughout the 2010 season.
Posted September 1
I am now entering my third year in the NYU program, and I couldn’t be more excited to start. After a long week of two-a-days as a part of our preseason camp at the PDA facility in New Jersey, the team looks strong and ready for the upcoming season. It is always nice to see the newcomers mixing in with the returning players and creating chemistry within the team, which I think happened quicker this year than in years past.
PDA was a chance for our team to bond on and off the field. I think this team has a lot of character, which is great to see. Every training session is intense and extremely competitive. We all want to win this year and take the NYU program back to where it belongs: the NCAA Tournament. It seems like this year’s team has the right attitude to do just that.
We got our first chance to showcase this character last Saturday in a preseason scrimmage against Drew University. The first half didn’t go well for us, as we went down 2-0 after they converted a penalty kick and a breakaway. But like I said, this team has a lot of character, and we proved that in the second half. We created chance after chance and scored a great goal from outside the box which was quickly followed by a penalty kick of our own. The game ended 2-2, and even though we fought hard to earn the draw, we shouldn’t be content with the outcome. To have success this year, we need to win games where we have a lot of chances and we cannot afford to give up soft goals.
On Wednesday, September 1, our team will travel to Hoboken, NJ, to face Stevens Tech in our first regular-season game. Stevens is definitely our biggest rival outside of our conference (University Athletic Association) and is currently ranked #15 in the nation. This, coupled with the fact that we are playing at their home field, will make for an extremely intense and exciting game. We know they will be good and that their fans will be loud, but that’s what makes soccer fun for us. This is the start of our journey this year, and I could not be more excited to see what happens next.
