Box Score WILLIAMSTOWN, MA—Down a goal early, the Williams men's soccer team rallied for a pair of second-half tallies to defeat Wesleyan 2-1 on Saturday afternoon. The Ephs (6-4-1, 4-2-0 NESCAC) temporarily moved the Ephs past Tufts and tied the Cardinals (6-3-2, 4-2-0 NESCAC) for second place in the conference, with the Jumbos' match against Connecticut College still in progress late on Saturday afternoon.
Leading the way for Williams was midfielder Chris Conder, who assisted on both Eph goals and played tenaciously on the wing to help curb the Cardinals' strong start to the game. Conder's pair of helpers gave him four on the season, good for 4th in the NESCAC; last year, he finished third in the same category, with six assists. "Chris hasn't played the same minutes he played last year, but he buys into the whole 'team' philosophy," said Eph coach Mike Russo after the game. "He was just fantastic."
The game also had a special significance for Conder, whose mother was visiting from his native England. "I'm trying to impress her," said Conder. "She needs to stay here for another month or so," joked Russo.
Conder's best sequence came just shy of the hour mark, when he set up the game-winner. The senior dribbled past a pair of Cardinal defenders on the left side and absorbed a hard, high tackle from Ben Toulotte, who was whistled for a foul. On the ensuing free kick, Conder drove a low, curling free kick into the box that found the head of a diving Luke Pierce, whose effort fluttered past goalie Emmett McConnell, off the far post and just over the goal line to give the Ephs a well-deserved 2-1 lead.
The goal was a sort of mini-redemption for Pierce, who, along with the rest of the Williams back line, was beaten badly on Wesleyan's goal just minutes into the match. Charlie Gruner's pass straight down the middle of the field found freshman Adam Cowie-Haskell, who beat the offisde trap near the center circle and broke in cleanly on the Ephs goal. Williams keeper Christian Alcorn came out to cut down the angle, but Cowie-Haskell kept his composure and easily slotted the ball past Alcorn for the third goal of his nascent collegiate career.
Though Wesleyan went without a shot on goal for the remainder of the half, they swarmed all over the Ephs in the minutes immediately before and after their goal. "They really came out firing on all cylinders," said Russo. "We were not playing very well, but a lot of that was due to how Wesleyan was playing. Their midfield was overruning us."
For their part, the Ephs were slow to regain their composure after the rocky start but began to stir in the 10th minute, when Conder whistled a driven ball into the box for Zach Grady, who made contact with a Wesleyan defender and tumbled to the ground just before the ball flew by him harmlessly for a goal kick.
Outside of Cowie-Haskell's goal, neither side managed a shot on net in the first half, but the Ephs made their first of the afternoon count less than 10 minutes into the second half. This time, Conder settled a cross sent his way on the wing and took one controlled touch before slotting a pass towards the six-yard box for Grady. This time, Grady beat his man and made no mistake, powering home his NESCAC-leading 8th goal of the season to knot the score at 1-1.
The run of play had begun to tilt in the Ephs' favor, but it was the Cardinals who had the game's next great chance. After an offensive flurry that included a good save from Alcorn on Gruner's shot from distance, Cardinal junior Brandon Sousa sent a slick through the middle that sprang Ben Bratt in alone on Alcorn. The Eph keeper read the play brilliantly, though, and made a feet-first sliding save to keep the match knotted.
That was the last save Alcorn would have to make. Even as the Cardinals flung ten men up the field in the game's dying moments, with goalie McConnell playing just behind midfield, the Williams defense stiffened inside the penalty area and kept the Cardinals out. On the other end of the pitch, Conder nearly picked up his third assist of the afternoon when he sent a perfectly weighted ball into the box for Brandon Dory, whose rocket of a volley sailed over the crossbar.
Moments later, it didn't matter, as the Ephs celebrated their third straight one-goal win at Cole Field. After enduring a four-game winless streak that left them foundering at the .500 mark, Williams appears to regained its early-season rhythm once more. "We need to play [like we did today] all the time to get results in this league," said Russo. "We're pretty happy right now."
