N.C. State grabbed the lead after just five minutes against Davidson and never lookedback, beating the Wildcats 2-0 on Tuesday night in Raleigh.
Junior forward Nick Surkamp, State’s leading scorer this season, bagged his third and fourth goals of the season to give the Wolfpack (4-1-1) the win. Surkamp has now scored in two consecutive matches after netting the Pack’s second goal against Virginia last Friday.
State dominated the match from start to finish and never let Davidson (4-3-1) generate offensive momentum. The Wildcats have now lost three straight after winning four of their first five games.
“This was a big win,” head coach Kelly Findley said. “These midweek games are really hard. There are no easy games in college soccer, so to come out and be really disciplined and take this game exactly how we needed to take it was huge.”
State looks to be finding form just as it enters the heart of its ACC schedule. The Pack’s next match comes on Friday against Boston College (3-2-2) in Raleigh.
State looked sharp early, zipping passes around Davidson defenders and creating a flurry of chances early. Defensively, the Wolfpack applied constant pressure and never let the Wildcats get comfortable on the ball.
State’s aggressive mentality paid immediate dividends in the fifth minute of the match. Senior midfielder Alex Martinez blitzed in with the ball from the left flank fired a shot at Davidson’s goal.
Martinez’ shot hit the post, but the ball rebounded straight to Surkamp in the middle of the box. With Davidson’s goalie out of position,
Surkamp coolly slotted it home to give the Wolfpack an early 1-0 lead.
“Alex made a great play to get around his defender,” Surkamp said. “I was just there to clean up and put it in.”
The opening goal came as a relief to Findley, who had been stressing the importance of starting quickly all week in practice.
“I thought we started the game really well,” Findley said. “It’s something we’ve been trying to work on. We actually trained using first five, last five [minute] drills this week and I thought our guys came out really strong. We scored one goal and probably could’ve had another in the first eight minutes, so I thought we showed a lot of discipline and a great mentality.”
State didn’t let up on the Davidson defense after scoring the opening goal. The Pack continued to apply pressure and easily could have doubled its lead in the 23rd minute.
A misplaced clearance from the Davidson goalkeeper fell to senior midfielder Nazmi Albadawi in the middle of the pitch. Albadawi passed to freshman midfielder Travis Wannemuehler, who found himself all alone in the box.
Wannemuehler ripped a shot towards goal, but a Wildcat defender threw himself in front of the shot to block the freshman’s shot.
The Wolfpack took a two-goal lead just 11 minutes after halftime. Sophomore midfielder Holden Fender played a pass to Albadawi, who saw Davidson’s defenders collapse on him and played a dummy, letting the ball roll past him into the path of Surkamp.
With his defender yards behind him, Surkamp surged across the face of goal and fired his shot past Davidson’s goalie to score his second goal of the night.
“We were talking as a staff about how we need to keep those guys closer together so they can combine,” Findley said. “It was a nice step-over to create space for Nick [Surkamp], who did a great job turning and hitting the target.”
Findley said he was happy to see Surkamp on the score sheet for the second consecutive game, and knows that his striker is finding form as the Pack approaches the midway point in the season.
“The defense was stepping hard on me the whole game,” Albadawi said. “I knew that if their defenders would keep coming with me, then Nick [Surkamp] would have all the room in the world.”
“Sometimes you have to take a risk and I took one and it worked out pretty well.”
