Vermont
Vermont soccer crushes Iona to race into second round of the NCAA Tournament
Vermont soccer: 2024 America East championship celebration
Vermont men’s soccer defeats Bryant 2-1 in Sunday’s America East title game at soldout Virtue Field.
David Ismail fired in a brilliant goal from distance in the 18th minute. Yaniv Banzini led the second-half offensive outburst with a pair of how-did-he-do-that finishes. And Sydney Wathuta played the setup man once again.
The result was clear: Vermont men’s soccer knows how to win NCAA Tournament games. And the Catamounts claimed another one on Thursday night.
Behind Ismail’s opening strike, Banzini’s brace and Wathuta’s two assists, Vermont cruised past Iona 5-0 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in front of 2,035 at Virtue Field.
The America East champion Catamounts (12-2-5) will play Hofstra in a second-round matchup at 5 p.m. Sunday on ESPN+. The Catamounts will seek their third straight trip to the Round of 16; two years ago, they reached the quarterfinals, one win shy of the College Cup semifinals; last year, they were ousted after advancing through the first two rounds.
The Catamounts now have six NCAA tourney wins since 2022. They had four in their program history prior to that.
In Thursday’s match, defender Zach Barrett dribbled down the right sideline and found Ismail on the edge of the box. The junior forward turned and, given too much space by Iona defenders, uncorked a lefty blast from 20 yards out that a leaping Iona goalie Loukas Georgiou could not reach.
Ahead 1-0 at the break, Bazini doubled the advantage 19 seconds into the second half. Bazini received a short pass following an Iona turnover 40 yards away from goal, and the dynamic senior forward weaved through multiple defenders before unleashing a blast from the top of the 18 that skipped in front of Georgiou and inside the right post.
In the 55th minute, Barrett heaved a long throw-in into the box for Max Murray, who nodded toward Bazini. With a crowd around him, Bazini beat the Iona defense with a crafty backheel for a 3-0 margin. It was Bazini’s team-leading 10th goal this fall.
To polish off the high-scoring performance for an America East school in an NCAA Tournament game, Wathuta set up Ryan Zellefrow in the 70th minute and Maximilian Kissel in the 85th minute, the latter giving Wathuta a single-season team record of 14 assists. Kissel also has nine goals this season, all as a substitute.
Niklas Herceg made three saves in net for his fourth clean sheet of 2024.
Contact Alex Abrami at aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter: @aabrami5.