Sports soccer

MIT draws against WPI

MIT Men’s Soccer maintains a streak of 12 undefeated matches after a draw on Saturday

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John Flynn '23 battles to head the ball against WPI's Ben Rickson Saturday.
Deb Torres

The Engineers Men’s Soccer team played WPI on Saturday Sept. 28 at the Roberts Field, MIT. The match ended in a draw after two overtimes with each team scoring one goal each. The goal for MIT was scored by Richter Brzeski ’23 with 4:39 left to play.

MIT came into this game full of confidence as they had won their previous two matches against Wheaton College (2-1) and Curry College (4-1). But things didn't start well for the Engineers as WPI kept putting pressure on the MIT defense which eventually led to a WPI goal in the 20th minute. The opening goal was scored by WPI’s Luke Reiniger who finished a through ball from Brandon Hima into the bottom left corner. Throughout the attacking spree by WPI, MIT goalkeeper Jeremy Cowham ’20 showed a splendid performance, putting the audience in awe with his excellent saves, he finished the game with a season-high seven saves. As it got closer to the end of regulation time, it seemed like MIT would suffer their first loss of the season, but the players didn’t give up as Brzeski leveled the score in the 86th minute thanks to an assist from Cowham. The goal started off with a long free kick from goalkeeper Cowham which deflected from Will Seiple ’23’s head and landed at Brzeski’s feet who made no mistake and tucked the ball in the far right corner of the goal. As nothing separated both teams at the end of regulation, the match went on to extra time. Even though WPI outshot MIT 5-3 in overtime and took four corner kicks they could not find the net, and the match ended in a 1-1 draw. 

Thanks to this draw, MIT extended its undefeated streak to 12 matches which is just two matches short of a program record. The team wishes to continue this streak and hopefully register a win in their upcoming match, a road game against Brandeis University on Tuesday Oct. 1.