The Dartmouth men's soccer team bounced back in a big way Saturday afternoon as the Big Green took a commanding 3-1 victory from Columbia University in New York City.
Columbia scored in the final minutes of play to get on the board, but the late effort was not enough after a two-goal day by forward Lucky Mkosana '12.
The victory moves Dartmouth to 7-5-1 (2-1-1 Ivy), while Columbia drops to 3-10-1 (1-3-0 Ivy).
The Big Green is now in fourth place in the conference, while the Lions are in seventh place. Harvard University leads the league with a perfect 4-0-0 Ivy mark.
Coming off a tough loss to the University of Pennsylvania, co-captain Craig Henderson '09 said the Big Green came into Saturday's match viewing it as a must-win game.
"Going into the game we had some big motivation," Henderson said. "We felt like we put on a pretty good performance, and we're always happy to get a victory away."
As promised, Dartmouth opened up running on all cylinders. Henderson made sure Dartmouth jumped out on top, as he put the Big Green on the board 12 minutes before the break. Forward Maarten van Ess '12 found Henderson in front of the net, and he buried his fifth goal of the season in the lower right corner at 32:28.
Dartmouth would take the 1-0 lead into the half, despite being out-shot 4-3 in the opening period. After having trouble putting together a full 90 minutes in its previous match against Penn, the Big Green was looking to do more than simply protect its lead in the second half on Saturday.
Led by Mkosana, Dartmouth essentially put the game away in the first 11 minutes of the second half. Two minutes in, it was van Ess again setting up the score by finding Mkosana, who fired a shot into the top right corner past Columbia goalkeeper Alex Aurichio.
Less than 10 minutes later, Mkosana struck again. Coming off a pass from Henderson at midfield, Mkosana drove down left side for a one-on-one break in the corner, finding the far post for his seventh goal of the season.
For his part, Henderson was relieved to see Mkosana find the net, ending what, by the rookie's standards, had been a bit of a dry spell.
"He's just a natural goal scorer," Henderson said. "That's sort of what we haven't had in the past, so it's a huge asset. We just try to keep giving the ball to him, and keep giving him chances to score."
Up 3-0 and with the Dartmouth victory secure, Columbia was able to finally get on the board with a few minutes remaining. It looked like Columbia would score with a header off a corner, but Big Green goalkeeper Sean Milligan '09 made a great save to punch the ball over the crossbar.
With the resulting corner kick, the Lions finally managed to beat the Dartmouth defense. Columbia midfielder Peter Morice's kick found Felipe Castrillon, who fired a shot to the low corner to beat Milligan at 87:26.
The goal would not be enough, and the Big Green took home the 3-1 victory. Afterwards, Henderson felt like the team put together one of its most complete games of the season.
"Of course, we still have some areas to work," Henderson said. "We did give up a pretty sloppy goal at the end of the game. But compared to other games we've had away this year, we dominated this one a bit more. It's a good thing to have fall for us."
The lop-sided victory came despite being out-shot by the Lions, 13-12, as well as having only one corner kick to the Lions' six. Dartmouth's Milligan had five saves, however, while Columbia's Aurichio only managed two.
The two-goal game moved Mkosana into the team lead with seven goals, while Henderson is second on the squad with five tallies.
Now, Dartmouth will be looking to build on its momentum when it faces first-place Harvard next Saturday in Hanover.
"I think the boys have got their confidence back now," Henderson said. "It's a big home game against Harvard, and we should get a lot of supporters out there. It's going to be a great game."
Kickoff against Harvard is at 7 p.m. on Saturday at Burnham Field in Hanover.
