POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. - In the Red Foxes' second home game of the 2011 season, they were led to victory over NJIT by the first collegiate goals of freshman Matt Wendelken (Massapequa, N.Y.) and Nicolas Fedus (Briarwood, N.Y.). A strong effort from the defensive backfield and goalkeeper Steve Skonieczny (LaGrangeville, N.Y.) helped Marist to their second shutout in three games.
The Red Foxes came out looking to set the pace early on as they manufactured their first strong offensive possession within the first three minutes of the game. Starting at 2:28, senior Krystian Witkowski (Rochester, N.Y.) and sophomore James Curley (Clifton Park, N.Y.) notched back-to-back attempts on goal, the first being blocked by a defender and the second a shot that NJIT's goalkeeper Adriano Deabreu made a save on.
Over the next 19 minutes, Marist controlled the majority of the possession, though NJIT had multiple chances that the Red Fox defense thwarted.
Marist finally broke through for the first goal of the game at 22:16 as Wendelken put a header past Deabreu off of a free kick ball by junior Stephan Brossard (Port Washington, N.Y). Brossard restarted the play from 40 yards out and found the streaking Wendelken for his first collegiate goal.
In the final 22 minutes of the first half, Marist continued to play their style of soccer. Off of a reset with a little over seven minutes remaining, the Red Foxes had another great scoring opportunity as Wendelken put a long, floating ball into the box that threatened NJIT's keeper as the offense charged in towards the net.
After the half, the tides turned a bit more in NJIT's favor as the Highlanders found themselves putting together better offensive threats. In the first 15 minutes of the second period, NJIT had two shots taken and two corner kick opportunities.
Play continued to flow from end-to-end and both squads had chances to put points up on the board over the next 15 minutes. Junior Josh Faga (Rochester, N.Y.) had his header attempt off of a Brossard corner in the 63rd minute saved, while NJIT's Nathan D'Aversa took two shots in a matter of five minutes with Skonieczny making the stop on his shot in 73rd minute.
Marist extended their lead to two in the 77th minute as Fedus netted his first career goal. After dribbling into open space and finding himself with a one-on-one with the goalkeeper, his initial shot hit the cross bar before ricocheting back and off of an NJIT defender.
NJIT tried to mount an attack over the final 12 minutes, but two of their three shots went wide, while the other was blocked by a defender. Skonieczny also played a key role in quelling the Highlanders' offense as he came out of his net multiple times to punch or deflect out crossing balls.
After 90 minutes of action, the Red Foxes were victorious by a 2-0 score in the first-ever meeting between the two schools. With the victory Marist's record improves to 4-1-1, while NJIT drops to 1-4-1.
For the game, Marist outshot NJIT 14-10 with a 7-1 advantage in shots on goal.
Post-game head coach Matt Viggiano said that he "was pleased the performance that my team put together tonight. It was tough game, where we struggled a bit with keeping the energy up, but that wasn't a surprise after a doing a lot of playing and traveling this past weekend. Overall, this was a good effort and I'm happy to get the win."
When asked about his two first-time goal scorers Viggiano remarked that "it was great to see the joy in their faces when they scored those goals. The first collegiate goal is always special."
The Red Foxes will next be in action on Sunday, Sept. 18 when they travel to Yale for a 1 p.m. matchup
