Men’s soccer wins first two games

The Carnegie Mellon men’s soccer team opened up the 2007 season last week with a pair of victories, getting off to a perfect 2–0 start. The Tartans hit the road and defeated Washington & Jefferson 3–1 Wednesday and made their home debut a successful one, beating Westminster College 3–0 Saturday night.

“So far so good, we’re getting our results,” sophomore forward Ricky Griffin said. “We’ve had two great first halves and decent second halves. We just need to keep practicing, keep working hard.”

Against W & J, Griffin was involved in all three goals, scoring two and assisting on another. Griffin started the scoring in the 18th minute with sophomore forward Patrick Lutz registering the assist. Lutz booted home Carnegie Mellon’s second goal 12 minutes later off passes from Griffin and sophomore midfielder Ryan Browne.

After W & J scored early in the second half, Carnegie Mellon responded in the 53rd minute with an insurance goal from Griffin, with junior midfielder Dan Brackley assisting.

Against Westminster on Saturday, sophomore midfielder Jonathan Hall scored the first two goals of his career in the win, and first-year midfielder Maximilian Betzig sandwiched his first career goal in between Hall’s heroics.

Hall’s first goal came in the 20th minute when Brackley’s free kick was flicked toward the center of the penalty box by sophomore midfielder Jonathan Simon.

Hall one-timed Simon’s cross into the back of the net. Betzig put the Tartans up by two goals 49 seconds later when he slid feet first to tap into the net a flick from Griffin.

Hall tallied his second goal in the 34th minute when he volleyed a low line drive cross from Brackley into the net. On the play, Brackley received a longer cross from Browne prior to setting up Hall.
“I was just in the right spot at the right time,” Hall said. “I got into the penalty area and we had two great services, one by Dan Brackley and Jon Simon and I was the man on the spot in those situations.”

Neither team scored in the second half with the Tartans out-shooting the Titans 17–9. Carnegie Mellon junior goalkeeper Matthew Bazin registered four saves in his first shutout of the season.
“We’re a really young team,” Hall said. “We have a lot of sophomore guys and a couple freshmen stepping up. We’re going to count on a couple of key upperclassmen to really steer us in the right direction. You can look forward to some exciting play out of our youth and we should expect to be extremely competitive in conference and out of conference as well.”

“We had a great class come in last year, a lot of starters,” Griffin said. “This team has a lot of chemistry, a great time on and off the field. We’re all having fun, it’s great.”

The Carnegie Mellon men’s soccer team will next be in action Saturday when they travel to take on Juniata College at 1 p.m.