River Forest, IL – The Dominican University men's soccer team avoided overtime on Sunday afternoon as an 89th-minute goal from Vicente Castro, his second of the game, broke a 1-1 tie to lift the Stars over the Eagles 2-1 at West Campus Field.
After a scoreless first half, Dominican opened the scoring in the 57th minute off of a free-kick from the left side of the field outside of the 18-yard box. Castro stepped up to take the kick and drilled it in the opposite top right corner past the Eagles goalkeeper for a 1-0 lead.
Benedictine responded in the 70th minute as a through ball up the middle of the field gave the Eagles shooter some breathing room and he beat Dominican's goalkeeper low and to the right side to knot the score up at 1-1.
With the match looking as though it would be headed to overtime, Castro had different ideas as he dribbled down the middle of the field before beating an Eagles defender into the left side of the 18-yard box. His shot evaded the goalkeeper into the bottom right corner of the goal to send the Dominican team into a frenzy.
The Eagles had a free kick opportunity in the closing seconds but the Stars locked down the defensive third to hold on for a 2-1 victory.
"That was a great, hard-fought, match today," said Head Men's Soccer Coach
Erick Baumann. "I'm very proud of our guys for coming together and competing as well as they did."
Dominican slightly outshot Benedictine 14-12 while taking one more corner kick (6-5) than the Eagles.
"I could tell once our pregame warm-up started that the group was locked in and ready to go," continued Coach Baumann. "The difference makers need to make a difference and we had multiple guys do that. Castro's two goals were pure class. I also thought Kowalczyk and Lamas were great and Dominguez really played big in the goal."
"We've been struggling with our consistency in training and our games so far this spring. The guys have really been focused as of late and we are working on finding that consistency we know we need."
The Stars hit the road for the first time this season when they head to Aurora on Wednesday, March 24th for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff.
