After almost a year since the tragic end of the men’s soccer season, the dips were back at Tylus Field on Friday the 6th, yes the same day and time as the Football, and left us on our end with a difficult game, which ended on a draw against Rowan.
After a competitive season in 2023, with only 3 defeats and 3 ties, the men’s soccer team was expected with a similar level for their return, but after 5 games already played, only the first one of the season was won against Lancaster Bible. The beginning of the season seemed like a struggle with very few opportunities created, no ideas brought in the tactic play and a lot of defensive and attacking errors as the players lacked precision and communication.
But this unusual course of events for the Dips finally took an end on September 18th as they finally won a game after four consecutive draws. The game against Alvernia didn’t start out being the best, with a pretty boring first half with nothing clearly happening and no concrete ideas to try and score a goal. It is right at the beginning of the second half than the mindset changed with an intense 30 minutes where the Dips would be pressing and communicating and creating opportunities to take on their opponent. And for the first time this season, striker Oscar Horwitz, who had broken the record for most scored goals in a season at F&M last season, finally opened his counter this season, with a great assist by midfielder Adam Green, who has been doing a good season so far helping his teammates finding solutions around the goal area. This was then followed by a second goal scored by defender Thomas Kaplan and a great assist by the unique midfielder Koa Kaliebe.
This victory at home finally freed the Dips from the drawing curse as they won on an even bigger score this weekend for the Centennial Conference opening against Haverford with a final score of 3-0. As usual the first half was less eventful, but the Dips managed to get a penalty which allowed Oscar Horwitz to score his second goal. And it is during the second half time than the Dips managed to make the Haverford defense and goalkeeper concede two goals. One was once again assisted by Adam Green while the goal was given to Oscar Horwitz, as they were too many players in the final yards it seemed impossible to know who exactly scored the goal. Finally the third goal was scored after an immense mistake from Haverford’s goalkeeper as Sean Lipschutz had made a great pass to midfielder Nathan Schlessinger, who on great luck, scored on that enormous mistake made by the opponent. This game also offered 18 opportunities for the Dips to score, showing more communication, control skills, but still missing some precision.
This great game lead head coach Dan Wagner to execute an unusual and surprising 10 substitutions 10 minutes before the end of the game, which seemed pretty clearly won. He basically played the C team and even gave playtime to a second goalkeeper. The coach gave players, who rarely get to be starters, the opportunity to show some skills and maybe convince him to win some ranks. After this great victory the Dips will be back at Tylus, tomorrow Wednesday 25th of September at 7pm against Kean, where they will try and get their third winning game in a row.
Junior Agathe Vanmassenhove is the Sports Editor. Her email is avanmass@fandm.edu.