HAVERFORD, Pa. – The Haverford College men's soccer team had the lead against No. 17 Rowan on two different occasions Wednesday afternoon, including a 2-1 lead with under a minute left in regulation time. However, the nationally-ranked Profs (4-1-2) scored with 24 seconds remaining in each half to salvage a draw. For the Fords (2-1-2), it was the second straight tie for a team that comes into the week receiving votes nationally in the D3Soccer.com rankings.
Contrary to Rowan's goals, which each came in the final minute of both halves, Haverford's tallies came in the early minutes. Just over two minutes into the contest, Haverford earned a free kick just a couple feet outside of the 18. That was still good enough for Nick Jannelli as he recorded his sixth goal of the season on a direct kick. His latest snipe was the 40th of his collegiate career. Only seven players have previously reached that milestone in program history. Rowan countered that first goal during the 45th minute of play when Matt Hendrickson was able to beat the Haverford defense and slot his shot into the upper 90.
Haverford retook the lead during the 54th minute of play when Rodrigo Zuniga tallied the first goal of his collegiate career. Jannelli put his classmate behind the defense with a beautiful flick over the backline and from there Zuniga beat the keeper in his 1v1 situation. Jannelli now has 18 assists in his career to tie for 13th in school history. The senior co-captain now sits on 98 career points and can become the sixth player in program history to hit the 100 point mark with either one more goal or two assists.
Both offenses looked extremely tough to handle as both sides created numerous chances throughout the afternoon. Twice during the second half Haverford was denied a goal by an unfortunate bounce off the crossbar. Just before Zuniga gave Haverford a 2-1 lead, Jannelli went up for a header that bounced onto and over the crossbar during the 48th minute of play. Nearly 20 minutes later, Brian Lorenz also created a great shot for himself only to see that rattle the cage as well.
Those two chances loomed even larger during the 90th minute when Hendrickson got loose for his second goal of the afternoon, scoring the equalizer with just 24.4 seconds remaining in regulation time.
Rowan finished the match with a 25-16 advantage in shots from a variety of positions on the field. Keeping that attack at bay for most of the afternoon was Haverford first-year Dylan Ioffreda. Getting his first start since the season opener, Haverford's rookie came up with a career-high nine saves on the afternoon. His counterpart made four saves.
The week of nationally-ranked opponents continues this Saturday for the Fords when they open Centennial Conference play against Johns Hopkins. That match is slated for a 6 p.m. start in Baltimore. Haverford has won three of the last four Centennial Conference Championships, but the Blue Jays were picked as the Centennial Conference preseason favorites which sets up a huge showdown on the opening weekend of conference play.