HARRISONBURG, VA — For the second year in a row, the Hofstra men’s soccer team’s season has come to an end at the hands of the James Madison University Dukes after tying 1-1 and being defeated in a penalty kick shootout in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Championship Semifinals on Sunday, Nov. 10, in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
The Pride were the aggressors through regulation, as they outshot the Dukes 13-8 in the first 90 minutes and 8-4 in the first half. Hendrik Hebbeker tied the game 19 minutes in, after Storm Strongin sent a pass inside the box to Adam Savill, who promptly crossed it to Hebbeker to collect and weave a shot through three JMU defenders and into the net. Hebbeker led all players in shots taken with four, and he was the only player to tally two shots on goal.
JMU got out to an early lead when a handball inside the box gave the Dukes a penalty kick after just eight minutes of play. Manuel Ferriol buried his shot, getting it past Hofstra’s goalkeeper Adam Ashton for a quick 1-0 advantage.
After two periods of extra time saw the Dukes take just two shots and the Pride take none, a tight penalty kick shootout finally determined a winner. Matthew Vowinkel missed Hofstra’s first attempt, and after JMU’s Carson Jeffris missed right after, the next six attempts between both teams were successful. The three conversions for the Pride came from Strongin, Oscar Ramsay and Stefan Mason. A save from JMU goalkeeper T.J. Bush against Savill allowed Fernando Casero of the Dukes to put the exclamation point on his team’s 4-3 shootout victory and push them into the CAA Championship Finals.
“Somewhat deja-vu from last year,” said Hofstra head coach Richard Nuttall. “I thought they were the slightly better team last year, (but) I thought we were really the better team this year…I thought we fully deserved to win the game, overall, against a very good JMU team, but we lost on penalties.”
In the 2018 CAA Championship, the Pride faced the Dukes in the tournament’s finals, and after tying at 1-1 through 110 minutes, the match went to penalty kicks where JMU won 4-2.
Vowinkel, the Pride’s leading goal-scorer, was quiet in the season finale, as he was not allowed a single shot for the first time this year. Prior to Sunday, he had scored goals in four of his last five matches and recorded two hat tricks in that same span.
In goal, Hofstra’s Alex Ashton made two saves in the match, both of which came in the second half. T.J. Bush made four for the Dukes.
The Pride’s season comes to an end with an overall record of 10-6-3, and 5-2-1 in CAA matches.
“It took us a while to get going, but those last eight or nine games of the season, after the opening game, we were quite formidable,” Nuttall said. “This season, we’ve grown into this team, and it’s just such a shame that we’re not gonna play (in the finals).”
