FAIRFIELD, Conn. – The Fairfield University men's soccer team splits its time between the road and home this week, opening with a match at Manhattan College on Wednesday night before hosting Rider University on Saturday evening. The Manhattan match is slated for 6 pm while the Rider match begins at 7 pm.
The Stags opened their Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) slate with a split last week, edging Mount St. Mary's University at home by a 1-0 score before falling on the road by a 3-2 count to Quinnipiac University. Fairfield is one of four teams standing at 1-1 in the MAAC standings while four other teams are currently unbeaten in conference play.
One of those teams comes up on this week's docket in Manhattan, which began the MAAC campaign with a 1-0-1 mark. The Jaspers picked up both of their results on the road last week, earning results at Rider (3-0 win) and Siena (0-0 draw).
Ronaldo Da Silva earned the MAAC co-offensive player of the week after scoring a pair of goals against the Broncs, raising his season total to three goals and one assist for seven points. Johan Velez is the only Jasper with more points as his four goals translates into eight points for the season. Goalkeeper Danny DiMarco posted both clean sheets last week to bring his goals against average down to 0.46 for the entire season with four shutouts.
Rider comes to Lessing Field after dropping its MAAC opener to Manhattan on September 28. The Broncs posted a 2-0 road win over Central Connecticut State on September 14 and earned a draw with NJIT with a 2-2 result before dropping games to Princeton and Manhattan by 3-0 scores. Rider played its first five matches away from campus before hosting its first home game against NJIT on September 18.
Adel Al-Masude paces the offense with two goals for four points while Lenny Cidolit ranks as the team's top play maker with three assists in his eight appearances. Dylan Kotch, Mo Bocher, and Tom Skrocki also account for a goal each this season. Goalkeeper Guillaume Veinante has played most of the minutes for the Broncs, sporting a 2.50 goals against average with a .627 save percentage off 32 saves in eight matches.
Fairfield saw three different student-athletes score in last week's matches as
Raz Amir collected the game-winner against Mount St. Mary's while
Alex Oliveira and
Thomas Drillien were responsible for the Stags' scoring at Quinnipiac.
For Amir, the goal against Mount St. Mary's represented his fourth of the season to go along with four assists for 12 points. He ranks third in the conference with his 12 total points and fourth in the MAAC for points per game (1.20). Goalkeeper
James Anderson registered another clean sheet in the Mount St. Mary's game, and checks in this week with a 2.20 goals against average against .662 save percentage (4.3 saves per game).
