The NC State men’s soccer team defeated the High Point Panthers on Tuesday, Oct. 4 with a 2-0 victory.
The Wolfpack (4-4-1) was in desperate need of a win against the Panthers (4-3-3) after dropping four of its last five. The team played well as a unit, but sophomore goalkeeper Lucas Hatsios stood out with a clean sheet, accumulating three saves.
In addition to Hatsios’ impressive performance in goal, freshman midfielder Calem Tommy and sophomore midfielder Will Buete both found the back of the net for NC State. Goals for the Pack have been at a premium this season, with only two scores in September before tonight’s game.
“Overall, just trusting the process and getting in the right spots, I feel like will give us more goals,” Tommy said.
The Wolfpack got off to a slow start as its players were getting outrun and out-hustled by High Point, and the red-and-white made some sluggish and dangerous passes in front of the goal. High Point failed to take advantage of this, and eventually NC State found its footing.
The first goal of the game came from a penalty kick taken by Buete in the 42nd minute that he nailed into the bottom right corner of the net. The PK was set up by fancy dribbling from sophomore defender Jarvis Cleal and was just the second goal scored by the team since Sept. 2 against Mercer. Once the Pack got its first goal, there was a clear boost of confidence from the home side, which wasn’t there at the start of the match.
NC State’s second goal came in the 52nd minute after a free kick from senior defender Pablo Pedregosa that bounced Tommy’s way was easily punched home. After this goal, the penalties began to stack up as the Pack tried to put away High Point, while the Panthers were simultaneously trying to claw their way back into the match.
This was an even, back-and-forth match, with the exception of the two free kicks that NC State converted on. Both teams were aggressive in drawing fouls, with the Panthers accumulating eight and the Wolfpack accumulating 12. Neither team had much difficulty moving the ball up the field, creating a gameflow that consisted of a plethora of corner kicks and shots.
In addition to the fouls, there were three total yellow cards assessed in this matchup, with High Point drawing two and NC State drawing one.
Head coach George Kiefer was pleased with the overall performance of the team and didn’t see many flaws with the play and pace of the game.
“It’s nice to have guys come off the bench and do the work they did for us,” Kiefer said. “There’s a lot of guys I trust.”
The Wolfpack will take its momentum from this win into its game against Boston College this coming Friday, Oct. 7 on the road.
