By By Dave Diamond
Senior forward Michael Todd scored his team-leading sixth goal of the season and sophomore Chris Cox scored his second to give the Pride a 3-1 victory at the Maryland Soccer Complex against Loyola College on Saturday. The Pride (5-2-1) is currently on a three-game unbeaten streak and has won four of five games on the road this season.
“We really came together as a team,” co-captain Jason Gates said. “It was a tough game and we had a lot of subs come in and they stepped up strong.”
The Pride bench made a huge contribution to the game, particularly when junior Brian Sosa scored his first career goal to give the team a rare multiple-goal win.
“I thought it was one of the best performances of the season,” head coach Richard Nuttall said. “We defended well as a unit and we worked hard together.”
Loyola (1-5-1) fell behind early thanks to Todd, who continued his torrid start to the season. At 14:40 of the first half, Todd scored on a counter attack off a feed from junior forward Constantinos Christoudias. The goal gave Todd 14 points on the season, a team high, and the Pride remained undefeated in games in which he scored (5-0-1).
Cox extended the lead to 2-0 at the 26:40 mark when he converted a penalty kick opportunity. The penalty tally was particularly important to the team, who has not capitalized on many open chances in the past few games.
“It’s a good sign, to be honest,” Nuttall said of the high number of missed opportunities. “I always say to my forwards, ‘start worrying if you don’t get the chances, don’t worry about missing the chances because eventually (goals) will come.'”
The Pride then went ahead 3-0 in the second half with 20:44 left to play on Sosa’s goal, assisted by, guess who, Todd and Cox. The midfielders’ first goal was undoubtedly special after playing more than two seasons with the team, but Sosa said goal scoring is certainly not an important part of his job.
“I bring a spark to the team off the bench,” he said. “I use a little creativity at the point of attack, use passing and keep the ball moving.”
He then thought for a second before adding, “But it was good to break the ice.”
The goal brought excitement to the coaching staff and players as well, who have watched Sosa grow into one of the team’s more feisty and dependable players.
“Everybody’s ecstatic for the guy,” Nuttall said. “He’s worked hard-there’s not a more hard working kid than Brian. It’s his goal, and it’s in the book.”
Unfortunately, goaltender Matthias Gumbrecht could not pick up his second shutout of the season, as Loyola’s Danny Wheelan scored a goal in garbage time. Even though the goal meant no harm to the outcome, the team’s tendency to relax at certain moments, according to Nuttall, could have been costly.
“It was a terrible goal, it was a soft goal, and that put us under a little bit of pressure, because if they scored another in the last 10 minutes, we would have had our backs to the wall,” he said.
Despite the goal, the Pride locked down a key victory in its final non-conference game of the season.
“They’re a tough team,” Nuttall said of Loyola. “I know their record doesn’t show it, but they’ve lost a lot of one-goal games against very good teams.”
The tough teams Loyola played include nationally ranked Akron University and Fairleigh Dickinson University. The Greyhounds only win came in its first game of the season, a 2-1 triumph at Princeton University.
The Pride now heads to Drexel on Friday to begin playing its Colonial Athletic Association rivals. The team returns home to start October with three consecutive home games against the University of Delaware, Towson University and George Mason University. The three-game set is the team’s longest home-stand of the season.
“We’re definitely ready for the big competition,” Gates said. “Last year we did well against all the major teams. Our only downfall was with the somewhat weaker teams. This year, what we need to do is focus on beating everyone that we can beat and everyone that we need to beat.”

Sophomore Chris Cox (4) scored twice in 3-1 Pride road victory.