No. 6 Maryland men’s soccer plays to 1-1 draw against No. 19 UCLA

Since the start of Big Ten conference play, Maryland men’s soccer has felt like a car rolling down a hill, continuously gaining momentum and picking up positive results.

Monday night was the first time in a while it hit a bump, as rival No. 19 UCLA came to town and played it to a 1-1 draw, in which the Terps also lost one of their best players to injury.

“I thought it was an excellent college soccer game tonight,” head coach Sasho Cirovski said. “At the end of the day, probably a fair result.”

Rivalry games always tend to bring out a different gear in teams, and that was certainly the case for the Terps early.

Many Maryland games this season have gotten off to slow starts. The Terps usually work the ball around methodically, looking for defensive breakdowns.

But within the game’s first minute, Albi Ndrenika fizzed a ball across the face of UCLA’s goalie.

The game looked wide open, with Ndrenika and Leon Koehl putting Maryland’s forwards in a lot of dangerous positions. But UCLA launched some dangerous counter attacks the other direction as well.

The Bruins’ aggressive press forced Maryland into uncharacteristically giving the ball away multiple times. About five minutes into the match, Laurin Mack had to make an impressive save diving down to his right to prevent the Terps from falling behind 1-0.

It became a question of which team would strike first. The answer was the home team.

Ndrenika played a ball down the right wing to Sadam Masereka who collected it off a ricochet and was instantly through on goal in the right side of UCLA’s box.

Instead of closing down Masereka’s angle, Wyatt Nelson froze in the Bruins’ goal and Masereka drilled it right through his legs, giving Maryland a 1-0 advantage. It was Masereka’s third goal in his last four games.

“He’s a hell of a player, but I think it took him a little bit to get adjusted and everything,” captain Alex Nitzl said. “Now you can see every single game he’s gaining more confidence.”

UCLA responded well, though, and looked like the better team for the first half’s final 15 minutes.

With around a minute to go in the half, Koehl went down with an injury to one of his legs and did not return for the remainder of the match.

Despite trailing, the Bruins came out of their locker room for the second half with all of the momentum, and they quickly capitalized with a beautifully worked equalizing goal 10 minutes into the period.

Nicholas Cavallo crossed a ball to Maryland’s back post, where Phillip Naef was waiting. He touched it back down for Tamir Ratoviz, who took a touch and slotted it near-post past Laurin Mack.

With 30 minutes to go, the game stood at one goal apiece, and both teams began hunting for all three points.

With Koehl out, Cirovski dropped his team into a 5-3-2 formation, making Chris Steinleitner a third center back.

UCLA gave Maryland multiple scares, the worst being an empty net chance that Jace Clark — who came in off the bench to help replace Koehl — made an incredible block on.

“Jace is known for those kind of tackles,” Mack said. “He’s giving great effort in general all the time.”

Maryland had chances of its own, including two impressive individual efforts from Max Rogers that went just wide, but in the end, both sides had to settle for just one point.

Three things to know

1. Koehl injury looms large. Koehl’s status will be massively important for Maryland going forward. He is instrumental, pulling the strings in its midfield as well as being the team’s penalty kick taker. He has converted all six of his opportunities from the spot so far. Cirovski said postgame that the injury ultimately forced him to change his formation.

2. Maryland’s goal scorer benched. Midway through the second half, Cirovski elected to remove Colin Griffith for Matias De Jesus as he switched formations. Griffith and Cirovski proceeded to get into a heated argument on the sidelines, and Griffith was ineligible to return for the rest of the game.

“It was a coach’s decision to take him out of the game, we had some other players that played well in the first half,” Cirovski said. “I think Colin was a bit rusty from his injury, and you know, wasn’t at his level.”

3. Mack shined. Mack made four saves, with maybe his biggest play not being credited as a stop. Midway through the second half, Maryland lost track of Naef who got completely through on Mack. But the netminder came out, closed him down and took the ball off of him.

“I’m trying to make pressure on the striker. That’s my job and I think I did it pretty well in that situation,” Mack said.