HAVERFORD, Pa. – The stakes were elevated for the Haverford College men's soccer team on Saturday in its regular season finale. Not only was the team celebrating the careers of its five graduating seniors and hosting their rivals, a playoff spot was in the balance for the winner of Saturday's match. Prior to the match, the Fords honored seniors Peter Baroff, Michael Iacono, Nick Jannelli, Mac Lyle, and Rodrigo Zuniga.
Playing to give their senior class at least one more match, the Fords finished three goals during the opening half of play en route to punching their postseason ticket. Haverford finished the match with an 8-1 advantage in corner kicks and capitalized on three of those chances during the first half. During the 11th minute of play, Noah Schwab got on the end of Jannelli's insert to open the scoring. Schwab's goal was his second of the season and fourth of his career.
Matthieu Maciejewski got into the scoring act for the second straight match, tallying the eventual game-winner during the 33rd minute of play. This time it was Ryan Sholes who inserted the corner to put the play in motion. Maciejewski has now scored three goals during his career and each have been game-winning efforts. Sholes was credited with his first assist of the season and the fifth of his career on the play.
Just under four minutes after the second goal, the Fords made it 3-0 as Paul-Andre Coulibaly scored his fifth goal of the season on a double assist from Sykes Cargile and Jannelli. Cargile was credited with his fifth career assist on the play while Jannelli recorded the 114th point of his career on Senior Day.
Swarthmore scored its lone tally just over five minutes into the second half as Woojin Shin finished a cross into the 18. However, that would be the only goal the Garnet tallied in their comeback bid as Haverford finished the match with a 21-8 advantage in shots.
The Fords put 12 of their 21 shots on goal, but nine saves from the Swarthmore keepers kept Haverford at three goals for the match. Oliver Steinglass came on in the second half for the Garnet and made six of those stops. Iacono made three saves in goal for the Fords.
While today's victory clinched a spot in the playoffs. It is secured a first round home match against Gettysburg. The Fords and Bullets both finished with 16 points and in a tie for fourth in the final Centennial Conference standings. Those two sides played to a 2-2 draw when they met during the regular season, but Haverford owned the best result between the schools as the Fords bested Johns Hopkins by a 1-0 score earlier in the season while JHU defeated Gettysburg. The time for Wednesday's first round match will be determined on Monday.