LAKEWOOD, NJ (Oct. 15, 2024) - Georgian Court Men's Soccer is on some kind of roll. Down to the closing seconds, when it looked like a draw with Felician was all but certain, GCU saw the door for a win was cracked open just a bit, and brought the whole house down with the game-winner with 11 seconds left to play. The win is the Lions eighth straight win and puts them at 8-4-1 this season, 6-1 in the CACC.

How it Happened
• It was Felician who was in charge of the match, especially in the first half. They controlled possession for 54% of the match.
• The Golden Falcons also rattled off 23 shots to the Lions eight. Georgian Court put four of their eight shots on goal while Felician was on target with just eight.
• Each team managed four corner kicks in the match.
• Offsides was a bug-a-boo for the Lions much of last week. They seemed to get that straightened out today. The Lions was whistled just once for offsides, while Felician was off five times.
• Fouls were evenly distributed. Felician charged for 10 and three yellow cards. The Lions hit for nine common fouls and two yellows.
• As it has so often this season, the game started quick for Georgian Court. Ayendi Batista was tested early, making a save in the first three minutes.
• The Lions took advantage of one of those Golden Falcons offsides calls. The free kick allowed Sebastian Derflinger to play the ball deep. Alessandro Cavallini controlled the ball to the right of the goal. He crossed into the box where Svante Haakansson flicked it with his head to Maurice Engl. Engl corralled the ball, took a beat, and fired from left to right into the net for a 1-0 lead.
• For the rest of the half though, the ball was mostly in Felician's half of the field. They were peppering the net until finally breaking through.
• At midfield, Andreas Mortensen played the ball ahead to Massimo Girardi who continued it in close to Dario Gomez who was able to get enough foot on it to slip it past Batista and tie the game with just under 20 minutes to play in the half.
• Following the goal, the Golden Falcons continued to keep the pressure on. They outshot GCU 11-0 the rest of the first half, but Batista made five saves and after 45 minutes the match was tied at one.
• Both defenses stiffened up in the second half. Each team had one dangerous opportunity though that the goalkeepers were able to make huge saves on.
• First it was Batista who came up big stopped a shot in the box from Dario Gomez after he broke loose.
• Less than three minutes later, Emanuele Moretti matched Batista stonewalling Jack Pollintine-Smith and the game remained even.
• Yellow cards started becoming more common as the urgency of the moment picked up.
• With less than a minute to play, Felician was awarded a free kick from 25 yards out. The Lions wall held strong, specifically Tim Wilk who blocked the shot.
• Felician played a pass a little too deep and Batista was able to come out high to easily snag it. With 20 seconds left he rolled it out to Mikey Mallon who sent it into the offensive zone where Gijs van Eif used his head to chip it forward allowing Haakansson to run up and shoot right at the top of the box and beat Moretti with the game-winner. 

Lion Stat Leaders
• Svante Haakansson had another three points with a goal and an assist.
• Maurice Engl scored on his only shot.
• Mikey Mallon, Gijs van Eif and Alessandro Cavallini all chipped in with assists.
• Ayendi Batista made nine saves in goal.

For the Golden Falcons
• Dario Gomez scored on two shots.
• Massimo Girardi and Andreas Mortensen each earned an assist.
• Emanuele Moretti stopped two shots.

News and Notes
• The win pushes Georgian Court's winning streak to eight, the second-longest in program history.
• It also halts the Felician winning streak and shutout streak at four games. 
• GCU remains unbeaten at home against Felician improving to 5-0-2 all-time.
• Oscar Jannesson surpassed 4,000 minutes played.
• This is the second time this season Haakansson scored a game-winner with less than two minutes to play. Also doing so at Dominican to break a 2-2 tie.
• Georgian Court continues to score early in games. It's the 10th time in 13 games they've scored in the first 16 minutes, the ninth time they've scored in the first 12 minutes and the sixth time they've scored in the first 10 minutes.
• The game-winner is the latest Georgian Court has ever scored a game-winning goal to break a tie in regulation in program history.

Quoteable
Dino Raso
On where today's game ranks in memorable wins
It's one of the top ones. For sure. We've had a similar scenarios to this. Those last second goals are always fantastic.

On the biggest reasons for Svante Haakansson's success
I think it's a little bit of confidence. Not only from himself, but from the staff. From his teammates. Once you get going, especially a forward, you need to know you're being relied upon, you're being called upon. I think he knows that we've given him a lot of slack and a lot of latitude to do what he has to do to get a goal. I think that's just growing every game that he plays.

On the game-winning goal
We can't plan some of those things. This was one of those moments where we caught them off guard. I think both teams were trying to win. I think we both knew how valuable that was. At the same time we were both trying to be shored up in the back so we didn't concede a goal and lose the game. I really think we just caught them asleep. 

Up Next
• Georgian Court has one more match this week when they go to Caldwell Saturday, Oct. 19 to take on the Cougars starting at 1:30 pm.