NEW ROCHELLE, NY — The Monroe College men’s soccer team got Homecoming Weekend off to a roaring start with an exicting, 1-0, overtime victory over archrivals, ASA College, in a contest played in front of a standing room only crowd at City Park on Friday. The golden goal, scored by Evan Finnegan, gave the throngs in attendance a reason to cheer just barely two minutes into overtime. The marker raised the record of the team to 11-1-1 overall and 2-0 in league play. The meeting was likely a playoff preview as the Avengers and Mustangs will meet down the road in the post season.
Neither side had many scoring changes early on as the battled back and forth for possesion in the midfield. Finally, at the quarter hour, Monroe got a chance. 15 minutes in Jordan Kinoshi, who is one of the walking wounded for the Mustangs, came on as a substitute and got free on the far side of the field. He cut into the penalty area and blasted a shot that was on target, but hit the crossbar and deflected to safety. Less than a minute later, Gonzalo Rodriguez took a shot that the keeper saaved to keep the game scoreless.
The game went into halftime in a scoreless tie. At 53:58, Kinoshi went on a run and was dragged down in the box by the defender. A penalty kick was earned and the subsequent try was wide right. ASA countered and got their best scoring chance in the 69th minute. Robert Ekroll stepped to his left to parry a pair of shots from the Avengers. The game went into overtime tied at zero.
Monroe won the game at the 92:08 mark. On the attack, Nicholas Haas played a ball to the far side for Finnegan. The Irishman went back to the middle of the box and beat the keeper to the near side for the game-winning marker.
The overtime thriller was just the appetizer for Homecoming Weekend. On Saturday, the Monroe College football team hosts Lackawanna at 5:30 PM. Also, the cross country teams compete in the Region XV Championship on Long Island.