Box Score NORTHFIELD, Vt. – The Norwich men's soccer team erupted to score four second half goals on its way to a 4-0 upset win over Lasell College on Tuesday afternoon in Great Northeast Athletic Conference action at Howard Field.
After a scoreless first 45 minutes, sophomore forward Joe Young wasted little time giving the Cadets a 1-0 lead as he scored on a side volley off an assist from Wesley Keslin just 53 seconds into the half.
"We were knocking on the door a bit in the first half," Norwich head coach Kyle Dezotell said. "We were happy but not satisfied to 0-0 at the half. Joe has been great lately. He's been really opportunistic and really dangerous. We've kind of been waiting to have that one guy step up and lately Joe has been it."
Senior captain Ryan Robertson increased the lead to 2-0 in the 58th minute when he took a flick pass from Pedro Rodriguez and then one-touched the ball underneath Lasell goalkeeper Aren Moorman.
Robertson made it 3-0 less than four minutes later when he buried a shot far post off an assist from Young.
Junior midfielder Garrett Shufelt capped the scoring with his team-leading fifth goal when he scored off a free kick from 20 yards out. Shufelt's shot deflected through traffic in front of the goal and then bounced off the inside of the far post and into the back of the net to make it 4-0 in the 86th minute.
Freshman goalkeeper Christian Hallstrom made his first appearance since Sept. 13 and posted a shutout while making five saves. Hallstrom preserved the shutout with a brilliant fingertip save on Adam Luciano with 16 minutes left in the match.
In the first half, Hallstrom also had the help of Chris Bristol who made a kick save on Mike Skelton's header while guarding the post off a Lasell corner kick that was bound for the back of the net.
Lasell outshot Norwich 24-23 and had seven corner kicks to Norwich's six.
"We've thought that we were a good team and we've even had good performances," Dezotell said. "But, the biggest thing is we've been beating ourselves lately by making silly mistakes. We knew there was a performance somewhere and we were just waiting for it to come out and today it did. It's a big win to beat the second place team in the league."
During the game, the Cadets wore black arm bands to honor the recent passing of Norwich freshman student Renee Robbins who passed away in a car accident early Sunday morning.
"A lot of our guys were close to the kids in the car accident and we had a lot of emotions coming into this game," Dezotell said. "We wore the black arm bands in honor of Renee and I know our guys are proud of this win today for that reason."
Norwich (5-7-0, 3-3 GNAC) has now won four of its last six and will head to Johnson & Wales on Saturday looking to continue its ascent up the GNAC standings.
For all the latest Norwich Athletics news go to www.norwichathletics.com, become a fan on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/#!/NUCadets, visit our YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/madkins11100, or follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/NorwichCadets
-CADETS-
