VILLANOVA, Pa. – In a regular season that is only eight days old, the 2018 Villanova Men's Soccer team has demonstrated a flair for the dramatic finish.
On Friday, the Wildcats were at it again with a familiar face again stepping forward in the game's final minutes. Senior Zach Zandi buried a blast from the right side at the 96:00 mark to propel Villanova to a 1-0 overtime victory over Loyola in a rain soaked contest played at the Higgins Soccer Complex. VU is now 3-0 on the campaign, with two overtime victories and another decided in the 88th minute. Zach Zandi has been part of the scoring on each of the three game-winning goals.
The loss was the first of the season for the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference preseason favorite. Loyola dropped to 2-1.
"That's a really good team," stated Wildcats head coach Tom Carlin of the Greyhounds. "That's an NCAA Tournament caliber team that has a ton of talent.
"This was a back and forth game, a hard fought game. I thought our guys were up to the challenge. We tweaked a few things after the last game and the guys did a great job of carrying out the game plan. It was pretty impressive."
The Wildcats were able to withstand 11 corner kicks from the Greyhounds as redshirt freshman goalkeeper Carson Williams posted his second clean sheet in three outings thus far. Williams's biggest save of the match came midway through the second half when Josh Fawole fired a missile from the right side that appeared ticketed for the left corner of the net. But Williams got his right leg extended and knocked the ball away.
Prior to his game-winner, Zandi earned himself a penalty kick with a nifty move inside the Loyola box. But Loyola's Chase Vosvick turned away the PK bid and then made a second save in that sequence after junior Conor Bradley collected the rebound and sent a shot towards goal.
Villanova gained an advantage in the 82nd minute when Fawole was assessed a second yellow card by the referee. By virtue of that he earned an automatic red card, giving the 'Cats an 11-10 manpower edge the rest of the way.
The game's decisive sequence again centered around Zach Zandi, who scored the game-winner in the season opening 1-0 win at Delaware and assisted on the Yusuf Cueceoglu goal that lifted VU past William & Mary 3-2 last Monday. He came free on the right side and found sophomore Theo Quartey out wide. Quartey returned the pass to Zandi, who found space just outside the box from the right side. He blasted a shot that deflected off a Greyhounds defender over the head of Vosvick.
"I found some space in the middle and Yusuf was able to find me," Zandi stated of the sequence. "I turned on it, found Theo on the outside and played it to him. Theo gave it back to me and I shot it on target. I got a little bit of a deflection but a goal's a goal. I'll take it."
"He's a senior captain – he's our guy," noted Carlin of Zandi. "He's been a captain for a couple of years now and missing a PK is not going to get to him. In the final third, he's very dangerous."
The Wildcats will take their 3-0 mark to Clemson, where they will meet the Tigers on Monday evening at 7 p.m.
