Penn State men’s soccer (4-5-1, 1-2-1 Big Ten) drew No. 21 Maryland (5-1-4, 3-0-1 Big Ten) on Tuesday night.
A defensive battle in College Park saw a scoreless game going into the halftime break. A goal for both teams, including a free-kick goal from Caden Grabfelder, led to a draw between the Big Ten opponents as the teams enter the back half of the season.
How It Happened
The first five minutes of the game showed the Nittany Lions winning the possession battle, calmly circulating passes defensively. Some passes were fed up top to Christian Dionne and Caden Grabfelder, but no real opportunity came out of those attempts. Maryland did squeeze a pass into the box in the fifth minute, but Matthew Henderson cleared the danger.
Maryland began to send more pressure offensively, generating crosses inside that were cleared by the Nittany Lions rapidly. In the eighth minute, a cross was sent in that deflected awkwardly off of defender Mohamed Cisset requiring goalkeeper Andrew Cooke to fully extend to keep the ball out of the net…