Box score

NEWARK, NJ –Junior Christian Galindo scored his second game-winning goal of the year for NJIT, lifting the Highlanders to a 2-1 overtime win over visiting Quinnipiac in non-conference men's soccer Sunday afternoon on Lubetkin Field at J. Malcolm Simon Stadium.
 
With two goals in his first year with NJIT, Galindo scored Sunday's game-winner just 2:09 into the overtime with his team holding a two-man advantage. His previous goal came in a 3-2 victory at VMI on September 4.
 
Galindo settled matters on NJIT's first foray of overtime, firing a hard shot that demanded a solid save by the Quinnipiac goalkeeper, junior Josh Lavallee. However, all Lavallee could do was deflect the shot back out into the field, where it went straight to the originator, Galindo, who rocketed the rebound back past the helpless keeper.
 
In a game that saw numerous players knocked to the ground, the referee issued two yellow cards to Quinnipiac in the first half and three more (two to NJIT and one to the visitors) in a span of 2:17 in the second half, before ejecting the two Bobcats on direct red cards, the first of which was seven minutes after the preceding yellow.
 
Bobcat freshman Machel Baker was red-carded for a hard foul in midfield, forcing his team to play a man down with 19:08 left in the second half and Brandon Strain-Goode was ejected less than 33 seconds later (72:25) for taking down NJIT's Amine El Moumen from behind on a breakaway.
 
Sunday's overtime win left NJIT with a 2-7-2 record, while Quinnipiac drops to 3-4, as its three-game winning streak came to a halt. The Highlanders are 1-1-2 in 2011 overtime games.
 
“It was key for us to get Galindo back today,” said NJIT coach Cesar Markovic, who was the junior's coach at Stony Brook for two years before they both came to the Highlanders in 2011. “We have two wins and he has both game-winning goals. He missed the last game (injured vs. Saint Peter's) and we lost a lot without him in our lineup. He's not scared of anyone or any situation and that's what makes him who he is.”
 
Each team scored a goal in regulation, with NJIT, which had the better of the play most of the day, scoring in the ninth minute on the first career goal for junior midfielder Nathan D'Aversa, assisted by senior Angel Gomez, who suffered a leg injury and was lost for the day minutes later.
 
The NJIT lead stood up into the second half, but Quinnipiac equalized on the fourth goal of the season for freshman Ola Ogonjobi, assisted by his classmate, Baker, at 56:06.
 
The final stat sheet showed the home team with an overwhelming 22-6 advantage in total shots, with a slimmer, but still decided, 8-4 edge in shots on goal. NJIT's wide territorial advantage was reflected in its 8-3 margin in corner kicks.
 
Lavallee, the Quinnipiac goalkeeper, ended with five saves, while NJIT junior Lars Maalen-Johansen, back in goal after a five-game absence due to a leg injury, made four saves to record the win.
 
The win, NJIT's first at home in 2011, comes after a three-game road trip, all of which ended in defeat. The previous two home games for the Highlanders were double-overtime scoreless ties against Long Island (September 11) and against Drexel (September 17).
 
“We're starting to establish ourselves at home,” said Markovic, whose team has one loss in its four home games, with three left on the schedule. “We played well and we created the situations to get up two men, like the breakaway by Amine (El Moumen). We created a lot of chances and we were rewarded in the end.”
 
The Highlanders got on the board at 8:35, when Gomez sent a diagonal pass back from the left side of the box to D'Aversa, who blasted it on the first touch from 16 yards and straight on inside the right post.
 
NJIT kept up the pressure, but could not get an insurance goal in the first half, despite outshooting the visitors, 9-5, and being awarded two direct free kicks on fouls from just outside the 18-yard penalty area.
 
Indeed, Maalen-Johansen in his first action since the scoreless tie with LIU three weeks ago, preserved the NJIT lead with a great save in the 23rd minute. Quinnipiac's Philip Suprise made a strong run into the box. The NJIT defense recovered and got back behind him, but Suprise dribbled free and got off a strong 12-yard shot . The 6-foot-6 Maalen-Johansen, who was off his line to close the angle, used all of his length to make a sprawling left-handed deflection that sent Suprise's shot inches wide of the far post.
 
Early in the second half, NJIT was awarded a free kick from less than the penalty distance, when Quinnipiac was whistled for the goalkeeper handling a back-pass from the defense in the 49th minute. With the Bobcats wall covering the entire goal line post-to-post, NJIT's Luis Granizo tried to shoot below the crossbar, but his try sailed off-target high.
 
NJIT would hold an 11-1 shots advantage in the second half, but it was Quinnipiac that managed the only goal of the second 45 minutes. Having let the Bobcats off the ropes so many times, the Highlanders were burned with the equalizer at 56:06, when Quinnipiac's Ogunjobi knocked the ball in on a 17-yard diagonal roller to the left post that actually looked more like a cross than an attempt to score. Baker, who fed Ogunjobi from midfield, was credited with the assist.
 
Later, playing with the two-man advantage, Luis Granizo of the Highlanders took a header in the 78th minute, forcing a terrific diving save from Lavallee of the Bobcats. Granizo's try was one of seven for his team in the second half after it gained the two-man advantage.

After the game, Markovic praised the work of freshman Anthony Escamilla, who came on for the injured Gomez. "Anthony helped us big-time defensively and held the ball well," the coach said. "It's nice to see a freshman play with that kind of poise."
 
Next up for the Highlanders is a big non-conference match, when they host a team from the powerful Atlantic Coast Conference for the first time in program history. Indeed, the visit from Virginia Tech on Saturday at 7 pm will be the first by an ACC team to NJIT in any sport.
 
The Hokies are 3-7 overall and 1-3 in the ACC, but that record barely tells the story of how formidable Virginia Tech is. On September 10, the Hokies upset North Carolina, then ranked first in the nation, 1-0, in two overtimes. Since then, they have faced three more nationally-ranked teams--#11 Boston College (a 4-3 loss in overtime); #22 East Tennessee State (a 1-0 loss on the road); and a new national #1, Maryland (a 2-0 loss at home). In Virginia Tech's last game, on Saturday night, it lost 1-0 in overtime at Wake Forest, a program that reached the national semifinals in 2009.