Men’s soccer tops A-10 with weekend wins

Zachary Holden
Staff Writer

On Friday night, the VCU men’s soccer team beat No. 12 Xavier at Sports Backers Stadium 4-1 in a dominating performance.

“They’re a team that’s was in the NCAA tournament the last two years,” said head coach Dave Giffard. “It was a great result against a very good team.”

The Rams came out firing early as Mario Herrera Meraz unleashed a long-range shot that soared past Xavier’s diving goalie to give them a one-goal advantage just nine minutes into the game.

Stifling defense gave VCU the majority of possession in the first half. A couple of shots from Nate Shiffman in a span of five minutes midway through kept the Xavier goalie from being able to take a rest.

In the 24th minute, the Rams earned a corner, which Jason Johnson took full advantage of as he headed it in to put VCU up 2-0. They would go into the half with a two-goal advantage.

“It certainly doesn’t hurt when you score goals [early],” said Giffard. “I think it was a great start for us.”

VCU came out in the second half with the same intensity and wanted to keep up the pressure on their top ranked opponents for as long as they could.

It didn’t take long before the Rams extended their lead to three goals over the Musketeers. Devon Fisher had the ball and decided to take a shot, which proved too much for Xavier’s goalie in the 50th minute.

“I wasn’t getting the ball a lot, but I started complaining and getting mad and coach was like ‘just play and it’ll happen’,” said Fisher. “Then literally right after he said that, JJ (Jason Johnson) goes in and the ball falls right to me.”

Ten minutes later Xavier pulled one back to keep their hopes of a draw alive. Matt Walker got past the VCU defense with ease and casually slotted the ball past VCU goalie Andrew Wells and into the back of the net.

In the 76th minute Kharlton Belmar put the game out of Xavier’s reach as he added the fourth and final goal for the Rams.

Xavier was the second ranked opponent VCU beat this season after beating No. 13 Charlotte earlier in October, also by a score of 4-1.

Sunday – VCU 3, Dayton 2

Sunday afternoon VCU beat the Dayton Flyers 3-2 in the final home game of the season at Sports Backers Stadium.

“It was a good game for us and we were really happy on senior day,” said Giffard.

The Rams started off the game with full pressure, similar to that seen against Xavier. A few early shots tested Dayton’s goalie.

In the 18th minute, Juan Arbelaez was taken down in the box after some skilled dribbling through the Dayton defense, earning VCU a penalty kick. Dennis Castillo stepped up to the penalty spot and converted it with ease as the goalie guessed incorrectly in his dive.

Keeping up the pressure, the Rams took almost every shot they could to make sure Dayton’s goalie never got comfortable.

Shortly before halftime, Kharlton Belmar went down on the field, but slowly made his way back up to his feet and was able to continue on. Less than a minute later, in the 38th minute he scored off a powerful header following a corner kick to put the Rams up 2-0 going into halftime.

The second half was one the Rams won’t forget any time soon.

Dayton changed something at halftime and began dominating all aspects of the game. Possessive play, stifling defense and shot-after-shot put the Rams on the defensive side for a good amount of time.

In the 68th minute, Dayton got the goal that was seemingly imminent after some poor defending from the Rams allowed Andres Acevedo to score easily.

The Flyers goal sparked something that the Rams just could not seem to stop.

Three minutes after the first goal, Dayton equalized. A corner kick fell right to Daniel Berko who volleyed the ball into the top of the net.

With the 2-0 advantage erased in a matter of minutes, the Rams had to step up play if they were going to send off their seniors with a win on senior day.

“Dayton can manufacture chances…they kept fighting,” said Giffard. “They scored two goals on two plays they manufactured and created, and could’ve had a third.”

In the 75th minute, a counter-attack from Belmar and Johnson created a great chance for Joseph Haboush right inside of the Dayton box, which he sent past the goalie to give the Rams the decisive goal they needed.

“We were happy with Joey…scoring for sure the biggest goal of his career,” said Giffard. “It was a fitting close to this afternoon that one of the [seniors] got the goal for us.”

The action wasn’t over just yet, though. In the 84th minute Dayton’s Berko dribbled into the VCU box and took a low shot that Wells struggled to save and allowed Berko to try another shot before Castillo stepped up and cleared the dangerous ball out of the box.

The win moves the Rams into first place in the Atlantic-10 as they hold the tiebreaker over Charlotte.

VCU will face cross-town rival Richmond on Nov. 2 in its final game of the regular season.