The Dartmouth men's soccer team bounced back from last weekend's heartbreaking overtime loss to Columbia to earn a hard-fought 2-1 victory against Long Island University yesterday at Chase Field.
Despite being outplayed for most of the first half, LIU got on the board first with an Elmer Campos goal at 28:10. The breakaway started when an LIU midfielder took advantage of an errant pass by the Dartmouth defense and put the ball to Campos, who rolled a shot under Dartmouth keeper Ben Gebre-Medhin '02. Gebre-Medhin was able to deflect the ball, but not enough to send it wide.
Dartmouth responded to the deficit with an immediate increase in offensive pressure, attempting several shots in the next few minutes of play, including one shot that was headed out of an open net by an LIU defender. Dartmouth was simply unable to put the ball in the net before the end of the half.
The Big Green opened the second half with the same intensity, and were rewarded with a penalty kick goal by Brad Christof '01 at 47:23. The free kick was awarded for an atypical holding foul in the box, which led to a great deal of protest from the LIU players and sideline.
Dartmouth took the lead for good at 53:50, as Matt Labarre '04 put the ball ahead to Seth Eaton '04, who collided with the LIU keeper, allowing the ball to roll past to Damien Quinn '04 for the open-net goal.
Once again, Dartmouth's offense was powered by the efforts of its freshmen, who constantly threatened LIU's third of the field. Labarre nearly had a goal of his own on a few occasions early in the first half, as he narrowly missed with several header attempts.
Dartmouth (9-4) plays at home again on Sunday in its Homecoming match with Harvard at 2:30 p.m.