Men's Soccer Makes Lone Goal Stand vs. Newbury

NEW LONDON, Conn. – The Mitchell College men's soccer team held on for a 1-0 victory over Newbury College on Tuesday afternoon in a New England Collegiate Conference match-up at Alumni Field.

The Mariners scored the lone goal in the 58th minute when Christian Tomaj cleaned up a rebound in the box for his team-leading fourth tally of the season. Goalkeeper Seth Strader made the margin stand to record his second straight clean sheet. Mitchell (3-8-2 overall) has now won its last three NECC contests and improved to 3-1-1 in league play.

After a scoreless first half, Mitchell earned back-to-back corner kicks early in the second stanza and capitalized. After the first attempt was deflected away, Zavier Veliz served the second attempt into the box and found the head of Jose Roman III. His shot was stopped by Newbury keeper Jarrod Smith, but the resulting rebound was quickly buried by Tomaj for the 1-0 advantage.

Newbury played a man down for the final 20 minutes but produced several quality chances for the equalizer. Strader made big saves on shots by Jose Palma and Ethan Forrest in the 79th and 81st minutes, respectively, and the Nighthawks had shots hit off the crossbar and post in the 83rd and 90th minutes.

Strader finished with five saves against 12 shots while Smith recorded eight stops against 16 shots. 

Mitchell will next host Regis College on Saturday, October 22 at 2 p.m. Newbury (9-7-1 overall, 3-3-0 NECC) returns to action at Southern Vermont College on Saturday at 1 p.m.