Box Score WATCH Zach Grady's Golden Goal in 2nd OT
WILLIAMSTOWN, MA—The chance looked a lot like all those other chances the Williams men's soccer team earned and squandered in its last four games. A good buildup and a probing cross undone by a clearance or a missed shot. So it went again: Malcolm Moutenot played Matt Muralles into the corner, received a pass back and whipped a cross into the box that grazed a defender's leg. Another missed chance.
Except here came Zach Grady around the back of Middlebury's defense to meet the cross and power it past Greg Sydor and give the Ephs a 2-1 2OT win over the Panthers. With the win, the Ephs (4-3-1, 3-2-0 NESCAC) snapped a four-game winless string and sent Middlebury (5-2-1, 2-2-1 NESCAC) to their second straight loss, vaulting over their conference foes in the process and settling into a third-place tie with idle Wesleyan.
With a goal in his third straight game, Grady moved into a tie with Hamilton's Dan Kraynak for the conference lead. He has scored six of the Ephs' 14 goals this season. "Zach has been tremendous, just fantastic" said Williams coach Mike Russo. "I can't say enough about how much he deserves it."
For the first time all season, the Ephs conceded a goal within the opening 15 minutes of the match. An awkward clearance attempt from the Ephs' Brandon Dory, playing on the back line instead of in his usual role as a striker, ricocheted off a Middlebury forward before bouncing off Dory's elbow to give the Panthers a penalty shot.
Dory was one of several Ephs who took on a new role at the outset of the contest, with freshman Tobias Muellers' start at right back among Russo's most notable lineup changes. "We needed to shake things up a bit," said Russo. "There was some complacency."
Noah Goss-Woliner took the penalty kick, the first the Ephs had conceded this season. Williams goalie Bobby Schneiderman guessed Goss-Woliner's attempt correctly and dove to his right, but the Panther's powerful strike nevertheless flew straight past Schneiderman to put Middlebury up 1-0. "We didn't quite know what would happen," said Russo. "But we stepped up."
Indeed, the Ephs monopolized most of the half's quality chances. In the 17th minute, Grady found Luke Pierce with an arching free kick, only for Pierce to inadvertently play the ball with his hand to negate the scoring chance. Moments later, J.C. Bahr-de Stefano snuck behind the Panther back line to receive a second-chance cross from Andrés Burbank-Crump following one of the Ephs' nine corners, but could not fully corral the bounding ball before it went out for a goal kick.
The dangerous restarts, whether in the form of free kicks, kept coming for Williams. In the 34th minute, the breakthrough they were looking for came as Geoff Danilack headed Grady's back-post corner on goal and forced Sydor to make a difficult save as Sydor fell to the ground and then Danilack then punched the rebound home for the first goal of his Williams career.
Though neither team was able to dominate possession for any notable stretches, Williams continued to look dangerous around the goal and squandered multiple chances. Moutenot's cross for an open Grady narrowly missed the head of the diving Eph attacker; shortly thereafter, Grady's own cross carried tanatalizingly passed by a fully-extended Danilack and was deflected away for a corner.
For their part, the Panthers looked to counter, frequently utilizing the speed of senior tri-captain Adam Glaser. Their best opportunity to break the deadlock with just over ten minutes to play in regulation. Then, Harper Williams' cross drew Schneiderman off his line to punch the ball to the edge of the 18, where Goss-Woliner was waiting for it. But Schneiderman regained his footing just in time to parry Goss-Woliner's quick shot before Eph midfielder Michael Madding finally launched the ball out of danger.
The back-and-forth freneticism of the second half carried over into the first overtime period. But nothing would go in: not an early shot from the Ephs' Tom Young, not a speculative Panther free kick, not even headers from Danilack and Pierce from so close to the goal line that it appeared they must go in.
Nothing, that is, until the second overtime, when Moutenot sent a deflected cross into the box.
