Junior midfielder Hamilton Howes’ 41st-minute goal brought the home crowd to its feet, but William and Mary men’s soccer (0-2-1, 0-1 CAA) was unable to overcome a significant early deficit and fell 4-1 to Rutgers (3-0-1, 0-0 Big 10) Monday, Sept. 1, at Martin Family Stadium in Williamsburg, Va.
The Green and Gold entered its home opener coming off a 1-1 tie against Navy (1-0-3, 0-0 Patriot) and a 2-1 loss to Campbell (2-1, 1-0 CAA). Tribe head coach Chris Norris ’95 expressed satisfaction with William and Mary’s early-season form but made clear he wanted to see his team display a heightened attention to detail during the program’s first-ever meeting with Rutgers.
“We’d love to have a win in the win column, but the performances have been good,” Norris said. “This is what we expect from college soccer. Games are tight, and the margins are really fine, and we’ve gotta do just a little bit of a better job of taking care of some of those margins. But we’re happy with the group and the way they’ve come into preseason and trained hard so far.”
The Tribe held its own during the game’s infancy, as junior defender Alex Kochell booted in a threatening cross that just missed the head of junior forward Owen Hagen, but the Labor Day matinee soon turned in favor of the Scarlet Knights. After Howes was shown a yellow card in the fourth minute, Rutgers launched a major offensive, attempting four shots over the next six minutes while generating three corner kicks.
The visitors’ efforts paid off in the 12th minute, when junior midfielder Joschi Schelb received the ball in the center of the field and dribbled around a Tribe defender. The nation’s third-leading scorer made his way to the top of the penalty arc and fired a right-footed drive past the outstretched arms of junior keeper Ryan Eapen, giving Rutgers an early lead.
Less than two minutes later, Schelb struck again, creeping unmarked behind the scrum created as the Tribe scrambled to clear a Rutgers throw-in that careened into the penalty box. A collision between two William and Mary defenders sent the ball flying, and the well-positioned Schelb took several steps backward in anticipation of a left-footed volley. His ensuing shot found the gap between Kochell and Eapen. In the 21st minute, an undefended Schelb repeated his feat, taking advantage of a Tribe breakdown and tapping in a rolling cross for his third and easiest goal of the half.
Norris gave credit to the “outstanding” Schelb, identifying multiple William and Mary miscues on which the Rutgers midfielder capitalized. Norris’ pregame wish didn’t quite come true — according to the Tribe coach, his squad still has work to do on the finer aspects of its technique.
“Are we forcing a player in the right direction?” Norris said. “Are we getting a second defender there to help and cover? When there’s a crossing movement, are we tight enough to attacking players in the box? Are we on the right side of them? Are we in a position to deal with the first ball? All these little details we just have to be better in.”
But as the sun fell behind the tree line and shadows began to envelop the pitch, William and Mary shook off its slow start, mounting several expeditions into enemy territory and bringing an end to the Scarlet Knights’ onslaught. For much of the final 15 minutes of the first half, the ball pinballed across Rutgers’ side of the field. In reclaiming the momentum for the Tribe, Norris praised the performances of senior midfielder Diogo Branco, junior midfielder/forward Gabe Ruitenberg and senior forward Lucas Caldas, the latter of whom finished the game with a team-high three shots. In the 41st minute, Caldas controlled a long pass from Howes and charged at the goal. He was denied a score by inches, but plays like these encouraged Norris.
“Once we got out of the first ten to 15 minutes, I thought our performance in the first half was good,” Norris said. “We had a fair bit of possession, a good number of opportunities where we had combination play that got us into areas behind the defense, not centrally, but in wide positions, and we just didn’t deliver the right service or we didn’t get maybe the right run, but I thought that there were a lot of promising things for us on the attacking side.”
William and Mary finally broke through on the corner kick that followed Caldas’ shot. Ruitenberg’s service was deflected to freshman forward Alex Garrison, whose try was stonewalled by three Rutgers defenders, but Howes read the rebound and smashed a volley into the back of the net. Howes is one of just three Tribe players to have scored a goal this season, an achievement made all the more impressive by the fact he missed the end of the 2024 campaign with a major injury.
“We’ve been really pleased with the way that Hammy has played for the first three games of the season,” Norris said. “He had a difficult PCL tear last fall, and he’s had a long road of recovery, and it’s great to see him back and playing at 100% and doing really well for the team. And he is capable of coming up with a big goal in set-piece moments.”
The Tribe nearly outshot Rutgers in the first half, attempting seven shots to the visitors’ eight, but couldn’t keep up the pressure after the break, attempting just three shots to the Scarlet Knights’ ten. In the 63rd minute, Rutgers sophomore forward Dan Karsten whipped in a header that bounced off the hands of Eapen, giving the Scarlet Knights a 4-1 advantage and sealing the game. Despite his four goals allowed, Norris was impressed with Eapen, who made several dramatic second-half saves to prevent the margin from becoming more lopsided. The Tribe’s goalkeeper battle, waged between Eapen, sophomore Karan Sobti and senior Jack Gorman, will remain a storyline to follow throughout the season.
“I think we have three good goalkeepers,” Norris said. “I think that the competition has been open throughout the season. We made the choice based on preseason to start Karan in the first two games, but we thought that this was a good opportunity in a non-conference match to give Ryan an opportunity, and we thought his performance was excellent.”
The Green and Gold’s 4-1 defeat marked its worst against an unranked opponent since October 2022, when it lost 3-0 to North Carolina. Norris’ assessment of what went wrong boiled down to the first 22 minutes — William and Mary simply gave up too many goals. The Tribe coach didn’t ascribe the loss to a failure of mindset or effort; rather, he said Rutgers’ arsenal of offensive weapons forced his team to commit a prohibitive number of errors.
“Obviously, we gave up early goals, and that was a huge factor,” Norris said. “We have given up some early goals in games. I think tonight was a little different because I think our mentality and our intent was good from the start. We played against a team tonight that has some outstanding attacking players, better than we’ve seen so far this season. And, you know, we made a few mistakes. We didn’t take care of the details that we needed to defensively, and those guys punished us in a way that most teams don’t. And so, obviously, that kind of changes the dynamic of the game.”
According to Norris, William and Mary will primarily work on its defensive skills as it prepares to return to the field Saturday, Sept. 6, when it takes on UMBC (4-0, 0-0 America East) at Martin Family Stadium.
