Two minutes into the second half, Longwood sophomore forward Mo Jalloh capitalized on a pass inside the 18-yard box from freshman forward Jacob Parrot, putting the Lancers up 1-0 after a messy first half.
“It felt really good scoring, it definitely brings my confidence up,” said Jalloh. He added with teammate Willy Miezan’s knee injury, they’ve been looking to fill his role as the team’s goal scorer. “We’ve been trying a lot of people up there, trying to make it work.”
Jalloh’s goal was the first of three for Longwood on Saturday evening, senior midfielder Finnlay Wyatt and junior defender Sepehr Harandi adding another two goals in the final 15 minutes while shutting out Division II Newberry College in front of their home crowd. Harandi scored the first goal of his career.
“The big picture is to get that win, get the clean sheet and protect your home turf, so all that was achieved,” said Longwood men’s soccer head coach Jon Atkinson. “How it was achieved wasn’t maybe the cleanest way of doing it. We left it late, and credit to Newberry they made it hard for us, but I think we had a big part in that too.”
With two forwards sitting atop the Lancers’ lineup, several of Longwood’s 27 shots developed from balls over the top of Newberry’s backline. Atkinson said with the speed the team has up top, mentioning Jalloh, they will continue to use the direct ball in games and look to improve the quality.
“There’s a variety of ways of hurting teams, we can’t just be one-dimensional. But if we’re not able to play the ball down the middle and through the midfield then the ball in behind is definitely an option,” said Atkinson. “It’s just down to playing a quality ball and the right time to play a quality ball. I think we need to rehearse a little bit better.”
Newberry put Longwood under pressure during the first half, but unable to capitalize on their own dangerous plays, the teams entered half time scoreless.
“It was just a bit of a lack of identity in the first half. We really weren’t too sure what page everybody was on,” said Atkinson.
In the end, Longwood outshot Newberry 27-10 in a statistically dominating performance. Newberry forced the Lancer goalkeepers to make four saves to keep the clean sheet, split between Longwood senior Carlos Canas and freshman David Hay, making his collegiate debut.
The Lancers will travel to Virginia Tech on Tuesday, Sept. 13 to face the Hokies at 7p.m. Virginia Tech will host Longwood after having five days to recover from their 4-1 road loss to Notre Dame on Friday, Sept. 9.
“They’re a really tough opponent,” said Jalloh. “I think that they’re kind of vulnerable right now so if we utilize the stuff we’ve been doing at practice, keeping our shape and keeping a positive mentality, I think we can get the result we want.”
Junior midfielder Dan Campos garnered All-Big South first team honors going into tournament play.
Longwood men's soccer earned their first regular season home win on Saturday, Sept. 10, keeping a clean sheet and scoring three second half goals.
Longwood men's soccer captains junior goalkeeper Carlos Canas and senior midfielder Finnlay Wyatt shake hands with Newberry before the whistle.
