By Dan McLoone, columnist
They knew it was going to be tough, but not this tough. For whatever reason, the men’s soccer team at Northeastern University has had a number of issues with putting the ball in the back of the net this season.
With their 5-0 defeat at the hands of Elon University on Saturday, the Huskies were shut out for the fifth time this season, only one shy of the six games in which they were held scoreless all of last year. Statistically, the Huskies are on pace for about the same production on the offensive end as last season. Through 13 games, Northeastern is averaging 0.92 goals and 11.23 shots per game, only slightly behind the 1.0 goals and 11.56 shots per game averages from 2013.
The issue that the Huskies have encountered, however, is finding a consistent and go-to goal scorer, something the club did not lack when Dante Marini played for Northeastern until 2013. Marini’s career was filled with timely goals and clever assists that helped the Huskies with key wins, including their first ever Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) conference title in 2012. With Marini and his six goals from last season graduating, and Terence Carter and his four goals transferring to the University of Cincinnati, the Huskies knew that there would be new faces that needed to step up and score.
But it hasn’t been easy. Senior forward Donovan Fayd’Herbe de Maudave and sophomore forward Christian McKenna were the only two returning players who had put a ball in the back of the net last year, accounting for four of the team’s 18 goals. This year, both Fayd’Herbe de Maudave and McKenna have tallied goals, with one and two respectively. It has been a scoring by committee approach for the Huskies upperclassmen, with redshirt senior forward Nick Goo and senior defender Simon Cox as the only other upperclassmen to tally a goal, both with one.
The scoring load for the Huskies has instead been shouldered by the freshman class, led by Brad Fountain and Frantzdy Pierrot. Fountain’s three goals, all beautiful long distance strikes from outside the box, are a team high, and Pierrot has been able to capitalize on his blend of speed and size to put home two goals himself. Along with those two, freshman forward Ackim Mpofu has tallied two goals, including his 97th minute tally to beat Drexel University last Wednesday.
The Husky attack needs to find its bearings and determine its identity. The 5-0 drubbing against Elon gives the team a reality check after two solid 1-0 wins to open up conference play. The message is clear: scoring is hard. At the same time, the defense that was supposed to be a strong point for Northeastern has also suffered a setback from last year. Even with returning senior captains Cox and Ambry Moss manning the back line along with redshirt junior Mike Lobben, Northeastern has already surrendered 21 goals through 13 games, far outpacing the 19 total that the team gave up all of last season.
Some of that may be due to the goalie carousel that has been in play so far. Both senior Simon Cox and freshman Jonathan Thuresson have been given opportunities to start, but Head Coach Brian Ainscough seems to have settled with Thuresson for the rest of the season. Simply put, the Husky back line just loses focus at times when it didn’t in years past. Nothing exemplifies that better than the team’s 3-2 loss to Harvard University in September. After jumping out to a 2-0 lead, Northeastern surrendered three goals to the Crimson in the last 19 minutes of the game, including the game winner with just under a minute remaining. It was a heartbreaking collapse that showed a lack of defensive discipline that we rarely saw out of the Husky back line last year.
Ultimately, the Huskies are quite capable of holding their own in the run of play. They have both the defensive prowess and the offensive firepower to put games away and not have to force goals late in the game. Difficulties in scoring and finishing in the attacking third can hurt any team, but the biggest place that it will hurt them is in the win column. Northeastern needs to continue to develop its attack into the big threat that it can be, and eliminate the defensive lapses that cost them the Harvard game. If it can achieve this, Ainscough and his men have the makings of a team that can turn this early season struggle around and win the close contests that eluded them last season.
