UMD v. Manhattan (R)

UMD 3-Manhattan 0

Sluggish and boring first half. Manhattan was content to sit back with 8 players and clear anything that came in, then counter when they could, which was very little. Terp defense pretty much ate up anything that came back there. #11, the tall lanky kid, and Seth Stammler did a good job of keeping the defense intact. Second half Terps came out with a little more life and scored a pretty first goal. Chris Lancos played a ball wide to Abe Thompson, a defender tackled him but he was strong and kept possession, he flicked a pass to Sumed Ibrahim then ran off it, Sumed turned and played it back. Thompson dribbled by a defender then whipped in a beauty of a cross(man he can serve that thing in there, his cross for Sumed's header goal against Duke was impressive as well), Erwin Diaz did well to knock it down and then there was Sumed to nod it past the keeper with a nice header. Second goal came when Manhattan cleared a Terp free kick out to Scott Buete, and he played a perfectly weighted ball to the back post, about 6 Terps beat the Manhattan offside trap, and Nino Marcantonio brought the ball down and flicked a cheeky little chip over the stranded Manhattan keeper. Third goal for the Terps was quite artful. Marcantonio, who played a good match IMHO, beat about 3 Manhattan players at midfield, carried the ball to about 30 yards out, then played a gorgeous pass to #14, a freshman, I believe, he had some wheels and blew by his defender and then the keeper, and tapped into the open net. Neither team showed much in the first half, but Maryland finally got it together and it was never in doubt in the second half. They're gonna have to play much better if they want to beat Wake Forest though, that's gonna be an incredible game. Hoping I can make it to Wake, if I can get out of work. If not I look forward to the post match analysis and news.