After suffering a difficult loss to Southwestern, the Trinity men’s soccer team came out to defeat Texas Lutheran University and Schreiner University last weekend with two shutouts. They defeated TLU 4-0 and Schreiner 8-0. The Tigers are now 4-2-1 overall.
“I think it was coming because we played pretty well against Southwestern, and, unfortunately, it didn’t go our way; we had some unlucky bounces, unlucky referee calls, but it was a pretty good performance. We defended extremely well and we attacked better than we had in previous games, so I think this weekend was a natural progression of the development of the team over the past several weeks,” said assistant coach Edward Cartee. “The team spirit was really strong. They were extremely motivated as a result of the tough loss beforehand, so that resulted in more commitment to get in the box, to finish crosses, to compete a little bit harder in the air to win a header off a corner kick.”
Against Texas Lutheran, senior forward Brian Hines was the first to put Trinity on the scoreboard with a goal in the 23rd minute, which was ultimately the game winning goal. Hines was assisted by first-year defender Francisco Vasquez. Senior defender M.J. Kawamoto had great ball movement up the field, which led to an assist for junior midfielder Victor Araujo in the 33rd minute. Sophomore defender Tom Carwile scored a header off a corner kick from senior forward Yuri Ribeiro in the 70th minute. Ribeiro also provided the assist for first-year defender Zac Treu’s goal, which followed minutes after.
“Going into the game, during the warm-up, there was this really, really great energy around the whole team. We just came out flying. The goals didn’t come immediately, but once the first one went in, we knew we were going to win. It was a huge relief because we didn’t want it go the same way as the Southwestern game,” said senior defender Ben Anderson.
Play continued on Sunday, where Trinity had a blowout game against Schreiner, which they won 8-0.
Carwile and Hines continued their offensive success, each scoring two goals in the game. Both players lead the team in scoring with three apiece. Hines’ performance in the weekend games earned him SCAC Men’s Soccer Offensive Player of the Week award.
“I think we were pretty concentrated after coming off a loss to Southwestern and we had a long break to think about everything and really evaluate our team. We were really ready to come out on Friday and Sunday and achieve some results. We knew we were going to get chances, we just knew we had to finish, so a lot of stress just went towards getting goals this weekend and we were able to get 12,” Carwile said.
In addition to Hines, junior midfielder Simon Uribe, junior forward Johnny Lawson, first-year midfielder Todd Edwards and senior midfielder and co-captain Darren McAfee all scored goals in the second half of the game, doubling the Tigers’ lead. Senior midfielder and captain Jeffrey Hayes made his first appearance after being out on injury. Hayes recorded two assists in the game, one coming off of a throw-in. Junior goalkeeper and co-captain Matt Cardone and sophomore goalkeeper Chad Margotta combined play to account for the clean sheet against Schreiner. Trinity had 40 shots to Schreiner’s 4 and led 21-2 in shots on goal.
“This weekend was just classic Trinity soccer; it’s nice to be back on track,” Anderson said.
The Tigers will host two SCAC games this weekend: Centenary at 8 p.m. tonight and Austin College at 2 p.m. on Sunday.