Temple men’s soccer (2-3, 0-0 The American Athletic Conference) picked up its second victory of the season against the University of Delaware (1-2-2, 0-1 Colonial Athletic Association) on Tuesday at the Temple Sports Complex in a 1-0 game.
The Owls came out very aggressive to start the game, peppering the Blue Hens with scoring chances early and often. They finished the game with a season-high 23 shots, 14 of them on target, while stopping any attack the Blue Hens mounted.
The Owls appeared to score in the sixth minute of play, but the goal was called back for offsides on Temple. The Owls were offsides several times during the game.
Despite some shaky goaltending, Delaware was able to keep Temple scoreless in the first half. The Owls were finally got on the board in the 48th minute when freshman midfielder Amir Cohen was positioned well for a hard rebound off senior forward Lukas Fernandes and buried it. This was Cohen’s first goal of the season.
“Amir is a guy that was with us in the spring, and you could see his qualities right away,” coach Brian Rowland said. “I think he’s a fantastic player. He gives us an option that connects lines for us higher up the field. He can shoot, he can pass, he can get in position. So I’m confident that he can score goals.”
While they only scored one goal, the team-wide mentality of playing with aggression is something Rowland would like to carry over into the future. He hopes the process in the future will result in more goals scored.
“Yeah of course we had really good chances,” Cohen said. “We could have scored more. I think we had 22 chances, that should be enough for every game.”
While the offense was active, the Owls’ defense was almost more crucial to their victory on Tuesday. Rowland credited that to the Owls domination in possession.
“A lot of it starts with our possession, if we have the ball we’re not defending,” Rowland said. “I thought we did a good really job of winning balls quickly after we lost them so I think that negated a lot of opportunities to maybe counter. Overall I thought we were relatively dominant in the game.”
This is the second straight win for the Owls, and confidence in the locker room is rising, something that sophomore defender Esteban Suarez, who played a part in Temple’s shutout, has noticed.
“I don’t [want to] say it was frustrating when we weren’t winning, but you can see a difference in the trainings, like people are more relaxed,” Suarez said.
The Owls could continue this streak on Saturday when they play Big-5 rival Penn at 7 p.m. at Rhodes Field.
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