TRIBE 3, CAMPBELL 2
It took 102 minutes and 26 shots for the College of William and Mary (4-0-2) to pull out a 3-2 double overtime victory Tuesday night.
Tribe junior forward Price Thomas ended the match when he ripped a loose ball into the net in the 102nd minute. The win extended the College’s unbeaten streak to six – its longest to open a season since 1994.
“To be honest, I do not know if the goalie had it or not, but I swung for the fences and luckily it popped out and I got a tap in,” Thomas said.
After Campbell University goalkeeper Aaron Johnson denied a low shot from Tribe sophomore midfielder Nat Baako, Thomas charged the cage and stole the ball from Johnson’s outstretched arms for the his second goal of the season.
Despite the College’s 26-12 advantage in shots, Campbell led 2-1 after Khalil Johnson scored in the 83rd minute. Johnson’s shot beat sophomore goalkeeper Andrew McAdams to the upper right of the goal.
Just two minutes later, Tribe senior forward Nathan Belcher notched the equalizer off a header that eluded Johnson and a Camel defender to knot the score at two.
“It was a big scramble in the box,” Belcher said. “Baako went up with the keeper and kind of knocked it out of his hands and I just jumped for it. [A Campbell defender] was on the goal line and tried to block it, but [he] blocked it up into the net.”
Belcher’s late goal was his second on the season.
“We dodged a bullet obviously,” Head Coach Chris Norris said. “We had most of the run of play in the second half and created a lot of chances. In the end it would have been a very disappointing game for us to lose or tie.”
The College opened the scoring barely five minutes into the match when redshirt freshman midfielder Stephen Laws corralled a rebound and placed the ball into an open net for his first career goal.
The Camels tied the score two minutes later on a low cross from Jason Keever, which ricocheted off a
Tribe defender in the six-yard box and spun into the cage behind McAdams for an own goal.
The Tribe nearly went ahead three minutes into the second half when Thomas fed the ball in front of the goal to sophomore back Nick Orozco, whose shot narrowly missed the left post.
“We are in a position now where we have to be really careful. We are preaching to the team all the time that we are not as good as the press clippings say,” Norris said. “We have to stay focused and stay humble and keep doing the things that have gotten us to this point.”
The Tribe will look to carry that focus into Saturday’s CAA match against Towson University at 7 p.m. at Albert-Daly Field.