The No. 20 George Mason Men's soccer team played the Navy Midshipmen to a 1-1 draw on Tuesday evening in Annapolis, Md.
The draw is Mason's second of the season and pushes its record to 7-0-2, while Navy moves to 4-4-2.
"That was a tough point to earn," commented head coach Greg Andrulis. "We had to deal with some adversity with a couple of uncharacteristic errors, but we are proud of the response by the boys to deal with those errors positively and forcefully. Navy is a disciplined, fit and well coached team, we had to be good tonight and we were. Now we focus on our first conference match of the year at VCU Saturday."
Scoring did not get underway until late in the second half when senior Timi Mulgrew put the Patriots up 1-0 on his eighth goal of the season. After gathering the ball just past midfield on a feed from Colton Amidon, Mulgrew broke in uncontested, shooting from 15 yards out and placing the ball in the left corner of the net in the 75th minute, out of reach for keeper Jackson Morgan.
Mulgrew had the best chance of the first half, attempting his second penalty kick of the season in the 20th minute however it did not convert to leave the game scoreless for the time being.
The Midshipmen did not wait long to tally an equalizer, scoring just over four minutes later in the 79th minute of play. Navy's P.J. Suess launched his free kick attempt 30 yards out from the left side of the field and was able to fly it past multiple bodies in the front of the net and off the hands of Kraus, landing in the left corner to tie the game at one apiece. The goal is the second allowed by Mason this season.
The Patriots had the slight attacking advantage in the first half, outshooting Navy 11-7 and placing five shots on goal in the period. Navy increased the pressure in the second half of the contest, placing 10 shots on goal to Mason's five, spending multiple minutes on Mason's side of the field. The Patriots got off 18 shots in the match.
The Patriots recorded one shot in each of the overtimes as Navy kept pressing, totaling six shots in the two 10 minutes frames for a total of 23 in the game. Steffen Kraus ended the match with five saves while Morgan blocked seven for the Midshipmen. Mulgrew led all Patriots with six shots in the match with Henning Dirks not far behind with five.
Next up for Mason is the first Atlantic 10 Conference matchup of the season when the Patriots face VCU on Saturday, October at 7 p.m. in Richmond.
