WENHAM, Mass.—Junior
Aaron Terjanian (West Chester, Pa.) scored two acrobatic goals to lead Gordon Men's Soccer to a 3-1 upset win over No. 24 Eastern Connecticut on Tuesday afternoon at the Quad. The Fighting Scots run their win streak to three games and hold an overall record of 5-2, while the Warriors drop their first contest of the season.
Gordon controlled the momentum throughout the first half and kept the Warriors back end busy from the very start. The Scots put five shots near the Eastern Connecticut goal over the opening 10 minutes, including a header off the crossbar by freshman
Tyler Modzeleski (Cazenovia, N.Y.). Warriors' keeper Ryan Murphy (Cromwell, Conn.) also made a few fingertip saves to keep Gordon out of the net in the early going.
The Fighting Scots finally broke through for the first tally of the game on
Caleb Cole's (Coatesville, Pa.) header in the 21
st minute. Freshman defender
Collin Surface (Tallmadge, Ohio) put a ball over the top of the defense from the left corner and found the forehead of Cole for the score—Cole's fourth of the season.
Gordon continued to press late into the first period, but a few close calls yielded nothing on the scoreboard. One last push with time dwindling on the clock gave
Torrey Stricklin (Warwick, R.I.) a long throw in from just in front of the Gordon bench. The senior tossed it to Terjanian, who was able to shimmy around his defender and send it arching over the approaching Murphy for the two-goal advantage.
The Plaid looked hungry for more in the second half when Eastern Connecticut quick-countered. The Warriors took advantage of Gordon not getting back on defense quickly and Tyler Jones (Vernon, Conn.) made them pay. A looping pass from Danny Manfredi (Unionville, Conn.) found Jones in stride down the left side. The attackman took one touch and launched ball over the head of
Josh Spoonhour (Greencastle, Pa.) to curb Gordon's momentum temporarily.
Eastern Connecticut had two great looks at evening the game over the next five minutes, but Gordon was able to balance itself back out.
Terjanian closed out any thoughts of a comeback with a strike in the 86
th minute. The forward was able to get his leg around the shield of his defender and poke it over Murphy, who had come up to collect the bounding ball.
"We finally put a really good offensive game together," said
Coach Derek Potteiger following the match. "Guys in the midfield were hungry for the ball and switching to two up top and three in the back generated more chances for us in our offensive third. "
Murphy made 15 saves for the Warriors, who fall to 6-1-1 on the season. Spoonhour made seven stop for the Scots.
Gordon is back on the pitch on Saturday for a Commonwealth Coast Conference showdown at Wentworth. Eastern Connecticut hosts conference foe Western Connecticut State on Saturday as well.