Box Score Box score

NEWARK, NJ—It was a mixed bag for the NJIT men's soccer team in its first home game of 2013, but the bottom line for the Highlanders was a 1-0 win over a  strong George Washington side Sunday afternoon on Lubetkin Field at Mal Simon Stadium.
 
Whichever team lost was going to lament its failure to cash in some dangerous chances throughout. But in the end, it was NJIT with game's only goal, on a first-class attacking effort by Matija Blazic and Marko Drljic, the junior duo from Koper, Slovenia at 15:07.
 
Drljic, who is an outstanding long passer, showed his skill with one such serve that Blazic controlled in stride, splitting two defenders in the process. With the breakaway down the middle, Blazic got off a hard shot thigh-high from near the penalty spot.
 
The GW keeper, Jean-Pierre van der Merwe, who was outstanding all afternoon, got a piece of the hard first attempt. However, it was struck too hard for the keeper to control and the ball bounded right back to Blazic, who drove it home on his second bite of the cherry from five or six yards to the right of his previous attempt.

Although the pass from Drljic was vital in starting the scoring play, he could not be credited with an assist under statistical guidelines set forth in the NCAA rule book. No assist may be credited when a player scores directly from a rebound of his own shot, as was the case with the Blazic goal.
 
The result left NJIT at 1-2-1 on the season, having lost to #19 St. John's 2-1 in the season opener and then at Sacred Heart, also 2-1. The Highlanders got their first point on Friday at VMI in a 1-1 tie, followed by Sunday's 1-0 win over George Washington.
 
GW, meanwhile, is 2-2, having lost its opener to American before posting consecutive 2-0 wins over Howard and LIU-Brooklyn, respectively. The win over LIU was Friday night in Brooklyn, NY.
 
NJIT, which outshot the visitors in the first half, 9-5, and 12-10 for the game, had a number of other scoring opportunities, but none of them bore fruit.
 
What may have been George Washington's best chance of the came with the game was still scoreless in the ninth minute. GW's Tyler Rinalli took a shot that came within inches of scoring twice in the blink of an eye. Defending on the goal line, NJIT's Cristian Marcel blocked Rinalli's shot with a header that saw the ball first carom off Marcel's head up to hit the crossbar and then bounce hard to the ground, where it stayed in play, enabling the Highlanders to clear.
 
With the overall shots total at 12-10 for NJIT, the Highlanders put four shots on frame to three by the visitors and the corner kicks were 6-4 for the Colonials.
 
NJIT's goalkeeper, Alexander Czempik, a junior from Germany playing his first year of college soccer in the United States, recorded his first shutout for NJIT, making two saves. George Washington's van der Merwe was credited with two saves.
 
Sunday's win was the first for Didier Orellana as head coach at NJIT. Prior to coming to Newark as an assistant coach for the 2011 and 2012 seasons, he won 56 games in six seasons at Manhattanville College an NCAA Division III program in Purchase, NY.
 
The win over against George Washington also continued a run of strong play at home for the Highlanders since 2011. That season, Orellana's first as an assistant with the program, NJIT was 3-2-2 at home, including a signature victory over Virginia Tech, compared to 2-10 away from home that year. In 2012, when the Highlanders set a program Division I high for wins in a season, with 10, they were 6-3 at home and 4-6 outside of Newark,
 
This year, after the 0-2-1 start on the road, they won Sunday's home opener.
 
"We just beat a very good team," said Orellana. "The first half was good. I like how we started. We came out focused and created some good opportunities. We just have to cash more of them in, because it can haunt you. That's what happened at Sacred Heart—we dominated early, but only led 1-0; then they came back, we lost our concentration at times and they took advantage and beat us.
 
"We're trying to learn from each experience. Hopefully, this game shows that the more we focus on the game, it gives us a better chance to win a close one than if we lose focus, the way we did against Sacred Heart."
 
NJIT returns to action on Wednesday at 7 pm at North Jersey rival Fairleigh Dickinson in Teaneck, NJ. FDU is off to a 3-0 start after advancing to the Round of 16 in last year's NCAA Division I championship tournament.
 
The Knights, who won the Northeast Conference tournament championship, upset St. John's in the first round, beat Saint Louis in overtime on the road in the second round, and finally lost in overtime, 1-0, at North Carolina.
 
During the regular season, on September 1, Fairleigh rallied from a 3-0 deficit against NJIT in Newark, scoring four second-half goals, including three in the final 19 minutes for a 4-3 win over the Highlanders.

Sunday was Alumni Day for the Highlanders and nearly 20 former players, including some NJIT Hall of Famers and two men who played on the NCE club teams before the sport was a varsity team, were recognized before the game. Mal Simon, the legendary coach and longtime Director of Athletics, was honored in the pre-game announcement, as well.