BROOKLINE – “Huskies” chants rang out over Parsons Field as Northeastern Men’s Soccer team won their final game of the season.
After losing to Elon University last weekend, the Huskies came out hot to win their senior night game against the University of North Carolina Wilmington 3-0. The game featured two goals from two of 12 graduating players, Sebastian Restrepo and Kevin Ogudugu, and a third from junior Kade Tepe.
The contest was fast and chippy, with the first of three yellow cards awarded going to Tepe in the eighth minute. But the Huskies were able to keep calm and scored their first goal in the 16th minute, thanks to a shot from Restrepo.
“I think I had to, it was written in the pages,” said Restrepo who played his last game and scored his last goal as a Husky. “If I didn’t, it wouldn’t have been that much of a goodbye.”
Before losing last weekend, the team was on a six-game unbeaten streak, their longest since the start of the 2021 season. Right before going into the game against Elon, the team found out that they were not going to qualify for the CAA tournament, and the announcement put a damper on the squad.
“I think that definitely hurt us. Going into that game we already knew that we couldn’t really make it anymore,” Restrepo said. “So, after we scored the second goal, you can kind of tell that the team just went a little down. Elon has always been a good team, and they had to win, so they really came and pushed through and ended up beating us.”
The first half Saturday saw a pretty equal amount of possession time between both teams, with UNCW finding a lot of speed on the outside and Northeastern making some good crosses to switch the point of attack. Griffin Polinsky, another graduating senior, seemed to be the main target for those crosses. Polinsky was consistently open in the upper corner of the field.
After the Huskies scored in the first half, UNCW was able to keep pressure up to stop Northeastern from scoring again. They had quick movement on defense, and were able to shut the Huskies down on some one-v.-one playing. One UNCW defender even managed to block a shot after the ball slipped past Trey Smiley, UNCW’s goalie.
Northeastern came into the second half with just as much push as they did the first, but then energy seemed to drop. This allowed the UNCW players to pass the ball amongst themselves smoothly for a couple of minutes and forced Northeastern goalie Colby Hegarty to make two back-to-back saves in the 47th and 48th minutes.
Northeastern then racked up another yellow card in the 55th before scoring at the end of the 57th minute when Ogudugu was able to slot in behind the UNCW defenders on the left side of the field and take on the goalie one-on-one to tuck his first goal of the season into the bottom right of the goal. Ogudugu was assisted by both Restrepo and Tepe on the play.
This seemed to bring life back to both teams. UNCW turned up the heat once more and forced Hegarty to make two saves off of UNCW corner kicks, while Northeastern’s Morris Matthews took a shot that was blocked by Smiley.
The Huskies scored again in the 68th minute, off a shot from Tepe assisted by Polinsky. Polinsky made a great cross that allowed Tepe just enough time to set up his shot and secure the attempt into the bottom left of the net. This brought the score up to 3-0.
Throughout the game both teams were unhappy with referee calls, throwing up their hands in apparent distress. This sentiment was echoed by the fans who booed at certain decisions. There were even two instances where players almost came to blows before they were separated by the referee: the first being less than four minutes into the game and the second with less than 20 seconds on the clock at the end of the second half.
Closing out the season on a high note is emblematic of the success Northeastern was able to find in the second half, even after a poor start to the 2024 campaign.
“We started picking it up towards the end of the season,” Restrepo said. “But then you look at the beginning of our season, when we were tying a lot… I wish it would have taken us a little faster to get it, but I’m very happy to see that we finally did.”