Naperville, Ill. – Rhodes College men's soccer traveled to North Central College (NCC) for an early kick-off at Benedetti–Wehrli Stadium. Under drizzly overcast conditions, the Lynx enjoyed another dramatic overtime victory after a hard-fought game against a tenacious NCC side.
The first half finished with zeros on the scoreboard for each team. Both sides had stretches where they maintained possession resulting in chances on each end. In the 21st minute NCC created space and had a shot from twenty yards out that required Rhodes goalkeeper
Jaimin Patel to get just enough on the ball to force it to hit the crossbar. This would be one of five key saves by Patel. The shot bounced off the crossbar and onto the edge of the goal line where center-back
Luke Chozick cleared it from danger. Both NCC and Rhodes would finish the half with three shots.
The second half became a war of attrition for Rhodes as they were forced to deal with fourteen shots and six corners by NCC. The Rhodes defense resiliently dealt with wave after wave of attacks and on the break sophomore
Juan Sandoval-Leon found the opening goal by exposing a mistake by an NCC defender. Juan doggedly swept onto the NCC turnover and confidently lifted the ball over the keeper to score his first goal of the season. NCC would not stay down for long, as they earned a penalty kick a minute later. The deadlock would last into overtime.
Both NCC and Rhodes were coming off overtime games in their previous matches on September 6. Despite tired legs, attacks continued to be mounted by both teams in a goalless first period of overtime.
In the second period of overtime, Rhodes would celebrate the walk-off winner.
Jack Lippe used his strength to bring the ball down at the top of the box and was fouled. Rhodes set up for the free kick at the edge of the goal box.
Ben Tang rolled the ball away from the NCC wall and into the path of
Ian Schiller who struck the ball sweetly into the top left corner of the goal.
Rhodes improves to 2-1-1 on the season and look forward to their home opener on Friday, September 13 when they host UT-Dallas during the Volgas Memorial tournament at 4:30 p.m. CDT.
