Maryland men’s soccer’s Max Rogers stood over the ball about 25 yards from the goal line faced with a tall task: rescue a win for his team that had seemingly just blown one.
Rogers stood calm, though, and unleashed a curler that bent right past the Bear’s goalie and into their top right corner of the net.
“As a lefty you kind of dream of that, just a touch off to the right there to get it up and over the wall,” Rogers said. “I saw it and it finally paid off.”
Thanks to his late free kick goal, Maryland could forget the goal they conceded just five minutes prior and secure their second victory of the season, 2-1.
It didn’t take long for Maryland to grab an advantage. Nine minutes into the match, Colin Griffith took his man on and won. Getting free in Brown’s 18-yard box, he forced a Bears defender to trip him up from behind.
Just like he did on Monday against Virginia, Leon Koehl confidently walked up to the spot and buried his penalty shot to the left side of the goal. Koehl converting the Terps first two penalties of the year was a welcomed sight for Maryland fans, who watched their team miss all four penalties they took in 2023.
“I practice [penalties] after practice, so I’m very confident in taking the shot,” Koehl said.
Maryland instantly went on the hunt for its second goal, but Brown goalie Henrik Weiper was up to the task, denying Griffith and Luke Van Heukelum in quick succession with impressive stops.
Those were Maryland’s best efforts on goal from open play in the half. On the other end, Brown failed to pose a real threat to goalie Laurin Mack and the Terps, who held possession for 53% of the half.
Cirovski elected to open the second half with a line up that looked a lot different than his starting 11, giving some young players like Mikkel Lejbowicz, Aidan Sheppela, and Cristiano Fitzgerald more opportunity.
If he was hoping the injection of youth would help the Terps find a second goal, he was wrong. The ball mostly remained in the middle third of the field; the Terps occasionally progressed down Brown’s flanks before their attack fizzled out.
Still, Maryland didn’t need a goal to get the result they were looking for. They simply needed to keep the ball out of their own net.
Then, with 12 minutes to go, Brown won a throw-in from the sideline near Maryland’s 18-yard box. The ball was tossed straight into the heart of Maryland’s defense, where it deflected to forward Lorenzo Amaral.
Amaral turned loose an absolute rocket into the top right corner, as Maryland watched the lead they had spent 70 minutes protecting slip away.
Five minutes later Rogers played hero, scoring his first goal as a Terp in style.
This time, Maryland protected its lead for the game’s final eight minutes.
Three things to know
1. Offense remains a cause for concern. Outside of a 5-2 thrashing of Horizon League opponent Detroit Mercy, Maryland has scored one goal in open play. The lone goal came against UMBC in the season opener. Since, they have gone scoreless against Georgetown and scored penalty goals against Virginia and Brown.
2. Set piece takers emerge. One of many reasons for Maryland’s historically poor season in 2023 was their inability to convert from the penalty spot. Koehl seems to have solved this issue this season, scoring twice in Maryland’s last two games from the penalty spot.
3. Maryland demonstrated resilience. Maryland has conceded unfortunate goals in its last two matches, and both times demonstrated an ability to respond in an impressive way.
“I like our locker room, I like the culture of our team,” Cirovski said. “There’s not a single game I walked away feeling like the guys didn’t put in a good shift.
