HAVERFORD, Pa. A quick start resulted in a 2-0 win for the Haverford College men's soccer team Saturday afternoon in its Centennial Conference opener against Johns Hopkins. The Fords (4-2, 1-0 CC) scored just over two minutes into the contest and added another goal in the 23rd minute to knock off the Blue Jays (4-2-1, 0-1 CC) by a 2-0 final.
Saturday's win was Haverford first at home against Johns Hopkins since the 1992 season when Haverford was a 5-1 winner. Johns Hopkins was 9-0-1 on Haverford's home turf since that 1992 loss. However, despite the Blue Jays recent dominance in the series at Haverford, the Fords improved to 13-11-2 all-time in games played between the two schools at Haverford.
Jumping out of the gates quickly, Haverford had a set piece from a seemingly safe location for the Blue Jays' defense. Putting the ball into ball just a few yards past midfield, Maclyn Willigan placed a perfectly struck ball on the chest of Colin Seitz. Seitz then redirected the ball towards freshman Russell Nicholson who finished with the quick volley to the far post.
Nicholson's goal came just 2:13 into the contest and was the first goal of his young career. Both Willigan and Seitz were credited with assists on the play.
With a 1-0 lead on the scoreboard with not even three minutes gone by, Haverford continued to push the pace and eventually found another crack in the Johns Hopkins' defense in the 23rd minute. On this goal, it was Brady Seitz that would set up the goal as he played a through ball to Sam Yarosh and put him in a 1v1 situation with the goalie. With the goalie coming out to cut down the angle, Yarosh was able to beat him to the right hand side for his first goal of the season and 14th of his career. Brady Seitz's assist was his first of the year.
The Fords carried that 2-0 lead into the halftime break as they also maintained an 8-5 edge in total shots. That lead would hold up for the final 45 minutes as well with sophomore Chris Gibson posting the first shutout of his collegiate career. Gibson stopped all five shots that he faced over his 90 minutes in net. Johns Hopkins took a total of 10 shots for the contest. Matt Paris took the loss in net for the Blue Jays as he played the first 45 minutes before giving way to Nick Cerrone in the second half.
Haverford finished with nine shots for the match, putting six of those attempts on goal. Nicholson finished with a team-high three shots in the contest, including his goal. Colin Seitz recorded a pair of shots, while four other plays took single shots for the game.
Up next for men's soccer will be a trip to McDaniel next Saturday in Centennial Conference action. That match will get underway at 1 p.m. The meeting with McDaniel will be the second straight conference match in a string of four straight contests in the Centennial Conference before resuming non-conference action.