No. 16 Big Green and Xavier Play to 1-1 Draw

Monday, September 5

Cincinnati, Ohio

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

Xavier

9/5/2016 9:33:00 PM | Men's Soccer

By: Dartmouth

CINCINNATI, OHIO – The Dartmouth men's soccer team played its second consecutive double-overtime game, playing to a 1-1 draw with Xavier on Monday night.

With the tie, the Big Green are now 0-0-2 and the Musketeers are 1-1-2.

Flooding moved Monday's game to the University of Cincinnati's campus in what became an aggressive match with 33 fouls between the two squads that lived up to the billing.

In the final minute of regulation with, sophomore Noah Paravicini headed in the game-tying goal toward the right post with assists by Alexander Marsh and Matt Greer to even the contest, 1-1.

"I thought this was another NCAA type game that really tested us as a team," Dartmouth head coach Chad Riley said. "Xavier is a very good team who will be in the NCAA tournament this year."

"I couldn't be happier with the team's reponse in the second half and overtimes, the second part of the game showed me what we are all about," Riley added. "We compete, play together and play hard. And when we do the basic things with a lot of intensity we can be good."

The first half got off to a quiet start until the 10-minute mark when Xavier started getting shots to Dartmouth's end of the field. The Musketeers got on the board in the 14th minute when Derrick Otim scored his second goal of the season. Xavier's Matt Nance worked up the left side of the pitch before hitting Otim with a pass for the first tally of the night.

After the halftime break Dartmouth returned to the field and started to create scoring opportunities in front of the Musketeers' keeper. In the 60th minute, Justin Donawa fired a hard shot that was blocked before Eduvie Ikoba tried to net the equalizer with a header that was saved.

After Paravicini's dramatic goal in the 89th minute the match entered its first overtime. About five minutes into the period Big Green goalkeeper, James Hickok, made a key stop with traffic in front of the net. He finished the night with five saves. A few minutes later Paravicini tried to be the hero again for Dartmouth with a shot that went just wide of the net.

With the score tied 1-1, the game went into a second overtime where both teams had quality scoring chances, but nobody could break the stalemate.

"Overall I am proud of the group, we challenge ourselves early in the season with these trips in order to grow, and I think both of these games sped up our development process immensely," Riley said.

The Big Green return to Hanover for the team's home opener on Sept. 8 when Dartmouth hosts Washington. The game can be seen live for subscribers on the Ivy League Digital Network with Dave Collins on the call.