The Stony Brook men’s soccer team kept its hot start up at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 11, as the Seawolves rallied late to beat the Fairfield Stags in double overtime 2-1.
It was a low-action game for most of the first half until the final three minutes, when Stags senior forward Jonathan Filipe sent a penalty kick past the diving junior goalkeeper Edmond Kaiser for the first goal of the game. With that, Fairfield drew first blood and took a 1-0 lead into halftime.
Stony Brook’s offense was not sharp in the first half. They were unable to get an official shot attempt off, missing a couple of opportunities early.
“[The offense] got impatient with the ball, and it led to some turnovers in the first half,” head coach Ryan Anatol said in a postgame interview with The Statesman.
The defense was sharp once again, limiting Fairfield to 0-for-9 shooting outside of penalty kicks. Kaiser stepped up, making several nice saves as half of Fairfield’s ten shots were on goal.
The offense finally got things going with just outside of 17 minutes left in the second half. Sophomore midfielder Trevor Harrison came off the bench and connected on a perfect pass with freshman forward Jonas Bičkus, who promptly shot and scored his second goal of the season to tie the game at one apiece.
“I am feeling very happy that we won,” Bičkus said after the game. “We kept our minds up. Coach [Anatol] told us that the best teams keep their heads up when things aren’t going well.”
The game remained tied and went to overtime, where neither team attempted an official shot, sending the game to the final overtime period.
After one hour, 40 minutes and six seconds of heavy competition, sophomore forward Sean Towey kicked a perfect pass into the box and connected with junior defender Sebastian Rojek. Rojek took his first shot of the year and sent it past sophomore goalkeeper James Anderson, scoring the walk-off game-winner.
Stony Brook improved to 4-1 on Rojek’s first goal in two years. Rojek provided a brief walkthrough of the final play.
“I lined up in the box, just to do my job,” he said in an interview with The Statesman. “I stepped in, then the defenders took two steps towards me … I took two steps back and took the shot.”
“I know he hasn’t been pleased with his service of late, so it was good to see him make a couple of big plays and get things going tonight,” Anatol said about Towey, whose perfect pass assisted the game-winner by Rojek.
Anatol also added an update on the injured sophomore forward Aki Solvason, who was hurt in their previous game versus Columbia on Monday.
“Aki’s feeling much better today, he’s day-to-day right now,” Anatol said. “But he probably won’t be ready for Rider.”
The Seawolves are scheduled to play their final non-conference game of the season on Tuesday, Sept. 14, in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. They will take on the Rider Broncos and hope to extend their winning streak to three games.
