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By Kevin Gove
For The Maine Campus
University of Maine forward Greg Bajek scored on a diving header with 4:30 remaining in overtime, giving the men’s soccer team a thrilling 1-0 America East win over the University of Vermont Sunday afternoon at Alumni Field.
“Keith [Moore] had a nice cross and I just dove to try to get it on the frame of the goal and it went in,” Bajek said. “I fell on the ground, looked up and everybody started jumping on me. It’s awesome.”
The victory was UMaine’s first in conference play since 1999 and ended a current eight game loosing streak. The Black Bears are now 2-10-0 overall and 1-6-0 in America East. The Catamounts drop to 2-7-1 overall and 1-5-0 in conference play.
Vermont had UMaine against the ropes during the final five minutes of regulation and continued to pressure the Black Bear net in the opening minutes of overtime. But the UMaine defense and freshman goalkeeper Josh Sjostrom, making his first collegiate start, denied every Catamount scoring chance.
“He was really aggressive and really set the tempo for us,” Black Bear head coach Travers Evans said. “For his first career start he played great in goal.”
Sjostrom made seven saves to earn the shutout.
“The MVP of our team today is Josh Sjostrom,” Bajek said. “If it wasn’t for him we had no chance of going to overtime.”
In the last three minutes of the second half, Sjostrom cleared away a loose ball in his penalty box after a corner kick, stopped a Jamie Farrell bid from 10 yards out and got some help from his goal post. Catamount midfielder Keli Halgason redirected a corner kick off the far post and the ball was cleared away by a Black Bear defender.
“I felt in the overtime period we basically camped out [in front of the UMaine goal] and missed about five or six chances to finish good counter attacks,” Vermont head coach Roy Patton said. “We felt today we were the far better team but just couldn’t get it done.”
The Catamounts outshot UMaine 19-8 in the match. UMaine’s final offensive rush developed like a play from an instructional soccer video.
Rob Dow fed Moore on an overlapping run down the right sideline. Moore carried the ball to the endline and sent a line-drive cross to the opposite side of the goal. Bajek left his feet at full speed and placed the ball in the upper left corner of the Catamount net beyond the reach of goalkeeper David Sullivan.
“That’s probably one of the best goals we’ve scored in a couple of years,” Evans said. “We really battled hard today.”
While the Black Bear defense did well to control Vermont’s front runners, the team wasn’t so successful containing Hartford’s offensive threats. Hawk forward Alon Lubezky scored three goals in the first half and added two more in the second half leading Hartford to a 7-1 win Friday afternoon. Junior Guy Primor assisted on four of Lubezky’s tallies.
Lubezky gave Hartford a 1-0 lead at 3:21 into the game heading a Primor cross between UMaine goalkeeper Adam Maciaszczyk and the right goal post. After Marcin Lust scored on a breakaway to put the Hawks ahead 2-0, Lubezky struck again beating Maciaszczyk with a hard, low shot inside the left post.
Midway through the half Maciaszczyk made a nice save to prevent a fourth Hartford goal and got his teammates going in the process.
“The first part of the first half we had no intensity and we gave them three goals,” Evans said. “After that we started to play well.”
Dow put the Black Bears on the scoreboard when he pounced on a loose ball near the 18-yard line and blasted a shot into the upper left corner of the Hawk net with 11:09 left in the half making it 3-1.
The goal gave UMaine momentum and disrupted Hartford’s game plan.
“I was pretty upset about that because we had the game in hand,” Hawk head coach Jim Evans said. “We got out of our flow and guys were looking for their own option. Maine took great advantage of that and scored one, could have scored another one.”
But, the Black Bears couldn’t pull any closer and couldn’t stop Lubezky.
Less than two minutes before halftime the Hartford forward curled a shot around a charging Maciaszczyk, giving the Hawks another three-goal lead.
“He just has a knack for scoring goals,” Jim Evans said. “We were talking at halftime and almost laughed because he really didn’t play that well in the first half. I thought in the second half he really showed his class.”
Bangor Daily News