The Point Park men’s soccer team introduced the 24-25 season with a powerful and strong home opener, winning 8-1 versus Chatham University. Before losing the match to the Point Park Pioneers, Chatham had one win and one draw, with the Pioneers matchup bringing the Cougars to 1-1-1.
The starters for Point Park were as follows: Captain Alexis Lamontagne, Captain David Ali, Edward Bowers, Baptiste Gaume, Finn Syson, Javier Morejon, Cheroky Briard, Ruben Kuypers, Ran Arad, Bruno Lancellotti and Fridolin Gerfoer.
“It’s a good feeling,” Coach Cameron Williams said. “It’s a historic moment for Point Park as it was our first NCAA DII win.”
By the end of the first half, Point Park scored five goals, with Chatham having scored zero. The first goal was scored by Morejon at the 11-minute mark who had received an amazing assist from Gerfoer after some intense passing sequences.
Chatham hoped to return with a goal of their own and decided to run an aggressive offense, but they failed to maintain possession of the ball. Point Park drove to the Cougar’s side of the field, resulting in a Pioneers goal at the 14-minute mark by Kuypers, with another assist from Gerfoer.
Gerfoer rounded out his assist streak with the third goal. After a great recovery of the ball by Morejon, the Pioneers took possession of the ball and, not long after, scored their third goal. Gerfoer added another beautiful assist, putting the ball directly at the feet of Briard, who scored at the 21-minute mark.
Morejon scored his second goal at the 23-minute mark with an assist from freshman Ido Chalamish. Chalamish drove a well-aimed pass to the center, leading Morejon to cleanly score the goal.
The fifth and final goal of the first half was an unassisted shot from Nils Benning. Benning shot the goal outside of the penalty box, cleanly soaring into the net and bypassing the defense with ease at the 34-minute mark.
These five goals concluded the first half of the game.
The first and only goal for the Cougars came after Point Park fouled Chatham, giving the Cougars a penalty kick. The penalty kick was saved by Ali, but an impressive bicycle kick from Azavier Coppin came too soon after to save.
At the 48-minute mark, Point Park came back with a goal of their own, as Benning scored his second goal of the game. Like Chatham’s previous goal, this came from rebounding a penalty kick by Briard.
With ten minutes left in the game, Point Park scored two more goals within a minute. The first was scored by Ian Thomas, with an assist from both Ethan Villa and Agustin Rodriguez.
Thieler capped the night off with the eighth and final goal for the Pioneers. Soon after the kickoff from the previous goal, Thieler scored from a rebound after Kush, the goalie, failed to save the previous shot on goal. Thieler was assisted by Kuypers and scored at the 82’ minute.
“We had energy, we possessed [the ball] very well for almost ninety minutes tonight,” Williams said. “One thing that stood out for me was our possession and our ability to exploit their weaknesses.”
The Pioneers went home with a dominant win, getting three yellow cards, 34 total shots, two saves, nine corner kicks, and 10 fouls.
“We were really focused on the game,” team captain David Ali said. “It was tough at the second part [and] at the beginning, but we stayed focused.” He finished by saying that the team was motivated and excited for its conference game with Concord.
