The No. 17 men's soccer team's unbelievable shutout streak rolled on Saturday night, as the Huskies scored a pair of second half goals to drop Pittsburgh 2-0 in front of 3,092 at Morrone Stadium.
With a fifth victory in what now stands as a conference-high six-game unbeaten stretch dating back to Sept. 20, UConn (8-2-3, 6-1-1 Big East) now sits two points clear of West Virginia in the top spot of the Big East's Blue Division with three in-conference matchups remaining in the 2009 regular season.
With a limited offense, the Panthers (1-11-1, 0-7-1 Big East) seemed content to try and lure the Huskies into a defensive struggle destined for double overtime, just as their last two contests had finished. Despite a 14-shot barrage by the Huskies in the first (they finished with a season-high 24 shots), the game seemed to be playing into the Panthers'hands early on.
Senior midfielder Mike Pezza - who saw his first action a game prior after a stretched ligament in his left foot had shelved him since late September - put that to rest at the 57:48 mark with his first score on the year.
Pezza, UConn's first sub at around the midway point in the first, took a feed from freshman forward Carlos Alvarez and made a run inside the 18-yard-box, dribbling through a pair of defenders on the way. Forced to shoot with his left foot with a Pittsburgh defender shielding him from using his right, Pezza lifted a ball toward the net that he didn't appear to strike all that well. It glanced off another Panthers player and out of the reach of goalie Zack Matthews to stake the Huskies to a 1-0 advantage.
"I actually wasn't gonna hit it since I was coming off the injury on my left foot and if I would have hit it it would have really hurt," Pezza said. "It was kinda cold out so I didn't really feel it and it kinda deflected off a defender a little bit."
Regardless of the struggles Pittsburgh's had this season, Pezza recognized that the team he was playing Saturday night wasn't concerned with past performances.
"Their record doesn't really mean anything because as you see they just tied West Virginia, Georgetown just beat them in overtime at their place," Pezza said. "Their record doesn't mean anything because different teams get up for different games and Pittsburgh gets up for UConn."
In Wednesday night's 4-0 rout of then-No. 6 Harvard, Pezza had come off the bench to contribute to the first goal of that game with his third assist of the year. Coach Ray Reid knows that a healthy Pezza makes his team only that much stronger heading into the stretch run.
"He's a great injection for us," Reid said. "He's getting fitter, he's starting to look at the goal. He played about 55 minutes tonight so he's getting there."
Senior defender Kwame Watson-Siriboe notched his third goal of the year - the first to come from his feet and not his head - in the 82nd minute to close out the scoring for the Huskies. Alvarez, who picked up a helper on Pezza's goal, tallied another assist by setting up the play with a well-placed cross. His seven assists are among the most in the Big East and are cause for Alvarez to get some consideration after the season when the conference's top rookie is honored.
Junior keeper Josh Ford stopped both of Pittsburgh's on-net offerings to preserve his Big East-leading 10th shutout. He inched closer to matching the Huskies' all-time career mark in that category with his 37th (Adam Schuerman, who played from '02-'05, has a program-best 38)
Be the first to comment on this article!