By Victoria Mickens – STAFF WRITER
Elon came to town from North Carolina, for the second-to-last home game of Hofstra’s fall 2015 regular season. It was a beautiful Saturday evening at the Hofstra Soccer Stadium, but there was definitely tension in the air that winded down until the 79th minute of regulation.
Mani Walcott scored the lone goal in the match to give the Pride a 1-0 victory over the 10th-ranked Phoenix.
The win was Hofstra’s first over a top-10 opponent since 2005, and clinched the CAA regular season title for the Pride, along with the top seed in the CAA tournament.
Meshack Eshun Addy, sophomore midfielder, took Hofstra’s first shot of the evening about fifteen minutes into the game.
The men were pretty hesitant to shoot throughout the first half of the match simply because defense was desperately needed.
“The first half we did not play with true conviction and we didn’t get at them and we defended quite well,” said head coach Richard Nuttall. “You know, we kept possession around the back well but I just think we didn’t penetrate, we didn’t get at them.”
The Pride reached halftime still scoreless and the decision to rest five players was made.
All the men of Pride soccer put in time as well as effort in and out of games to keep up their fitness and support each other.The period of rest ensures that the products of this effort from each of the members can be put on display.
In this case, the men gained complete control over the second half of the game.
“At half time, we put money up top. I thought our boys were magnificent, they were absolutely magnificent,” said Nuttall. “Their energy was there, whoever came off the bench was great, and they gave it everything.”
With about 11 minutes left on the clock, the Pride made a promising run that got everyone in the crowd on their feet.
Elon’s defensive players were all fixed on junior Rory Murphy. Murphy made a quick assist to center where sophomore midfielder Mani Walcott casually scored a goal, essentially winning Hofstra the game against a very difficult team to beat.
“[I’m] very pleased for Mani. He has been out with an injury and he came back and he got the winning goal,” said Nuttall.
He went on to tip his hat to Elon University by acknowledging that he thought the win was “fully deserved” because “Elon are a quality team and I think we dominated them in the second half.”
“They played some lovely soccer first half,” said Nuttall “And you see when they’ve got room they can play so again to have shut them down and really got at them, I am extremely pleased. Just immensely proud of the boys.”
With a little less than 10 minutes left, Elon tried to send the game into overtime by taking a shot. Senior Patric Pray was on top of things as usual and “saved one there,” as Nuttall said. This save along with three others earned him sole possession of second place on Hofstra’s all-time list.
Hofstra will go into their final two games of the regular season, against Stony Brook on Tuesday at 7 p.m. and James Madison University on Saturday, Oct. 31.
