Dartmouth's men's soccer team tied nationally ranked Boston University, 1-1, yesterday afternoon at a neutral site, Hellenic College in Brookline, Mass. After a few disappointing seasons, the Big Green now appear ready to fight at the national level. The game against the Terriers was the first of the three straight games against the nationally ranked soccer teams.
The only goal for Dartmouth came from Tui'one Faleafa '99, a former member of New Zealand's junior national team. Faleafa curved a 40-yard free kick that slipped into the corner of Terrier's goal. BU finished off a corner kick for their only score.
As it has been all season long, Big Green's defense was a key factor in this game. With the most solid backs in the Ivy League, Dartmouth cleared Boston University's chances. "I think our defense played great," former U.S. junior national team member and current Big Green goalkeeper Matt Nyman '99 said.
"Faleafa [Tui'one], [Bobby] Meyer '99, Brendan Reidy '99, and [Zach] Samol '98 did a great job at stopping most of BU's attacks and I was able to clean up anything that happened to get through," Nyman said.
The game was dominated by the Big Green all day long. "It was great to play against a top team and see how good we really are. Because we came off the field at the end of the game disappointed that we didn't win, we proved to ourselves that we are a team that can compete with the top teams," starting forward Michael Lewis '00 said.
"We played great as a team. I felt we dominated most of the game and had some great chances to score," Nyman said. "Unfortunately, we didn't get a break. But a 1-1 draw, playing away against a nationally ranked team is still a decent result," he added.
"Hopefully we'll continue to do the things that we are doing well, which are working incredibly hard for each other, keeping our concentration and organization for longer than the competition, and finishing our chances," Lewis said.
