The Memphis men's soccer team blitzed Temple 4-2 at Park Avenue Campus on a ferociously windy Saturday afternoon to improve to 3-3 in conference play, good for fifth place in the American Conference.
Miller Lashlee exploded for two goals in just as many minutes midway through the first half to put Memphis up 2-0, a lead that seemed to be enough. Until it was not.
Temple clawed their way back to an even affair after Lukas Egarter launched a penalty kick past Philip Sabatti in the 68th minute.
Saad Chaouki was not going to let Memphis settle for a tie.
Chaouki saw what Lashlee did earlier, and decided to match it, scoring two goals in 1:57 of play, a penalty kick in the 82nd minute and a perfect shot into the bottom left corner in the 84th minute.
“It’s easy that once it’s tied up to be like, ‘man, we blew this,’ or ‘tie’s good enough,’ but this was a must win game,” said head coach Richard Mulrooney after the game. “This was truly a must win game and I think the guys felt that way.”
With this win, Memphis moves up to fifth place in the American Conference and with as many points as fourth place Florida Atlantic, who owns the tiebreaker over the Tigers. This is important because in the American the top six teams make the conference tournament and the 3-seed and the 4-seed have home field advantage for the first round.
With only two games remaining in the regular season, getting a win over Temple, the last place team in the conference, was imperative to bolstering the Tigers’ postseason chances.
“We needed to win that game, so we gave everything we could,” said Chaouki after the game.
It was a sloppy, physical affair between the Owls and the Tigers. Between the seven yellow cards that were issued, including one for each coaching staff, and the swirling wind that at one point blew a stack of hundreds of napkins across the pitch, the game was a knockdown, dragout fight.
The Tigers, after throwing their early haymakers, were able to withstand Temple, as Mulrooney said, “throwing the kitchen sink at them.”
“At the end of the day, just being persevering, being able to see it out,” Head Coach Richard Mulrooney said stood out about his team’s performance. “That’s a good team and that’s another team that I’m glad we’re able to get a victory against, but I’m more proud of the guys for the fact that they just stuck with it.”
Memphis returns to play at 7 p.m. on Saturday at Missouri State.
