Men’s Soccer Falls in A-10 Semifinal to UMass in Overtime

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Dayton, Ohio – (November 10, 2017) – UMass' Konrad Gorich scored in the 95^th minute of overtime off a feed from Davis Smith to give the top-seeded Minutemen a 1-0 win over #5 seed Fordham in the semifinals of the 2017 Atlantic 10 Championship, held at Baujan Field in Dayton, Ohio.
 
With the loss, Fordham falls to 12-5-2 overall, while UMass improved to 14-3-3 on the year and advance to the championship final on Sunday.
 
It was a hard fought match between the Rams and Minutemen, having played each other just nine days ago.  The first 45 minutes saw UMass with the best scoring chance in the 37^th minute, as Konrad Gorich put a shot toward the Fordham goal, but goalkeeper Rashid Nuhu was right there to make the stop, right before the goal line.
 
The biggest play of the game though came late in the second half, as a ball was played into the UMass box that Fordham's Eric Ohlendorf deflected off his heel and inside the right post for a goal.  However, after a long discussion by the officials, the play was deemed offside, as Joergen Oland leaned forward on the play, though did not make a play on the ball.

 
Without that marker, the game went to overtime, where Fordham had another golden opportunity on a header by Matthew Lewis to the top right corner of the goal, but the shot was just in reach of UMass goalkeeper Bardia Asefnia for the save.
 
Then in the 95^th minute after a Fordham offside call, Asefnia took the free kick, sending it to Davis Smith, who headed the ball forward to Gorich.  Gorich finished the play from four yards out past Nuhu for his third of the season and the game-winner.
 
Nuhu finished the game with three saves, while Asefnia had two.  Following the conclusion of the tournament on Sunday, Jannik Loebe was named to the All-Championship team for the fourth straight season.
 
Fordham will now await to see if the team's resume is enough to get an at-large berth for the NCAA Championship, as the selection show is set for Monday.  The  Rams were ranked 24^th in the latest NCAA RPI rankings  and were receiving votes for the National top 30 poll by United Soccer Coaches as well as by College Soccer News.