BEVERLY, Mass. -- Mount Ida College ended an impressive 2015 men's soccer season with a 4-1 defeat to top-seeded Endicott College in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) DIII New England Quarterfinals on Wednesday evening at Hempstead Stadium.
Mount Ida ends the season with a 12-7-1 record, the most wins since 2000 and had earned the #8 seed in their second ECAC tournament appearance in the last three years.
With the win, Endicott improved to 16-2-3 overall and will advance to the semifinals at home on Saturday.
Senior forward Carlos Martinez (Chelsea, Mass.) capped his Mount Ida career with his tenth goal of the season and his 28th career tally, which cut the deficit to 2-1 in the 66th minute.
The Gulls outshot the Mustangs, 22-7, on a cold night that saw Endicott take an aggressive approach right from the start.
Senior forward Abdulla Al Khalifa (Riffa, Bahrain) found the back of the net early with a header off a throw in from freshman back Bobby Ivatts (Walpole, Mass.) to give the Gulls a quick strike just 2:08 into the match.
Endicott went into halftime up 2-0 thanks to senior forward Diego Slobotzky's (Mexico City, Mexico) boot into the back right off a corner kick taken by senior midfielder Shintaroh Itoh (Nerima, Tokyo, Japan).
The Mustangs played much better after Slobotzky's goal, holding the Gulls off the scoreboard into halftime and then getting right back into the game in the 66th minute when Martinez scored on a breakaway on a pass from freshman forward Jordain Williams (Colchester, Vt.), but the Gulls were quick to sound the horn less than 30 seconds later with another Al Khalifa goal to reclaim a two-goal advantage.
Sophomore back Brayden Nielsen (Essex Junction, Vt.) rounded out the scoring with a shot to the back right past a diving goalkeeper in the 88th minute to send the Gulls into the ECAC Semifinals on Saturday.
BEYOND THE BOX SCORE
- This was the first meeting between the two teams in program history.
- Jordain Williams (Colchester, Vt.) recorded his team-leading seventh assist of the season.
- Mustang Sophomore goalkeeper Riley Ford (Guilderland, N.Y.) (10-7-1) made nine saves in the defeat.
- Endicott Junior goalkeeper Nick Weinstein (Trumbull, Conn.) registered one save in the match as he improved to 16-2-2 on the season.
- Al Khalifa registered his tenth and eleventh goals of the season to lead the team in scoring.
- Al Khalifa has scored twice in a single match for the third time this season, but it was his first match of the season adding an assist to his points total in a single match.
- Slobotzky tallied his eighth goal of the year.
- Itoh added another assist to bring his team-leading season total to nine.
- Lambert and Ivatts picked up the first assists of their collegiate careers.
- Nielsen netted the first goal of his collegiate career.