For the second year in a row, the Violets earned a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
The NYU men’s soccer team is looking to advance in the 2022 NCAA Division 3 Men’s Soccer Tournament after finishing 9-4-3 overall this season. (Courtesy of NYU Athletics)
After finishing the year 9-4-3 overall and 4-1-2 in conference play, NYU men’s soccer advances to the 2022 NCAA Division III Men’s Soccer Tournament.
On their way to the postseason, the team never lost by more than one goal and outscored their opponents 38-13.
In the last six matches, the team has not lost a single game. The Violets scored 15 goals and conceded three goals en route to a 4-0-2 record. One of those ties came to c historic match against No. 2 University of Chicago, which finished the season undefeated, on Oct. 28. After losing sophomore forward Nathan Bennett to a red card in the first half, NYU held on and finished with a 0-0 tie.
After a tie against the UChicago Maroons, the team posted 3-0 victories against Washington University in St. Louis and Brandeis University.
“It was the best thing that happened to my team all year,” head coach Kim Wyant said of the tie against the Maroons. “We just came out of that game with a huge amount of swagger and confidence.”
The Violets now look to extend their regular season run into the NCAA Tournament where they will face off against the Williams College Ephs in the first round on Saturday, November 12th at 3:30 pm in Grantham, PA in the Messiah game. university.
“They just play good defense,” Wyant said of the Ephs. “They scored 20 goals this season. We scored 20 goals in three games.”
NYU is averaging 2.38 goals per game this season, while Williams is averaging 1.18 goals per game. Unlike the Violets, the Ephs’ 20 goals are spread widely across Williams’ roster.
“It doesn’t feel like they have scorers like Bryce Lexau or Arkan Tahsildaroglu or some of our players who are scoring pretty much every game,” Wyant said.
If the Violets advanced to the next round, they would play No. 1 Messiah University or Presidents’ Athletic Conference champions Franciscan University of Steubenville the next day.
The Violets were underdogs and unranked nationally throughout the season, but proved their mettle late in the season against the top teams across the country. Now they hope to carry their wave of momentum into their big game.
“It’s football, so it’s any team any day,” Wyant said. “You just have to go out there and compete and do what we’ve been working on all season — and that’s it.”
Contact Ethan Rendon at [email protected]
