The Ohio State men’s soccer team, the No. 1 team in the nation and the top seed in the NCAA Tournament, is headed to the Final Four and a shot at the College Cup. The Buckeyes made sure of this with a dominant 3-0 victory over No. 9 seed Wake Forest at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium Saturday evening. A well-chilled crowd of 1,763 watched.
Midfielder Michael Adedokun had two goals, including a penalty kick near the end of the first half. Forward David Ajagbe had a goal, midfielder Luciano Pechota had two assists and goalkeeper Max Trejo came away with a clean sheet. Although Wake had the advantage in possession time, Ohio State was the better defensive team and the much more efficient offensive team. The Buckeyes outshot Wake by a 20-7 count (10-3 on-goal).
“It was a good performance, no doubt about it,” Ohio State coach Brian Maissoneuve said. “That’s a really good technical team we played. They had a couple of opportunities early, but I thought we handled it well. The guys, they stick together. Someone makes a mistake, someone else is there to help. This is a cohesive team in every way. They’ve been like that all year.”
It was the 50th win at Ohio State for Maisonneuve, who is in his seventh season.
The Buckeyes (16-1-4) move on to the Final Four, which will be in Cary, North Carolina. The semifinals are Friday night, the College Cup final on the following Monday. Ohio State will play the winner of SMU-Marshall quarterfinal, played in Dallas later Saturday night. Denver and Vermont are in the other semifinal.
Wake Forest (12-5-7) and Ohio State are Nos. 2 and 3 in the nation in generating shots; each team has averaged more than 17 per game. They’re also Nos. 1 and 2 in the nation in total shots on goal; Wake had 168 and Ohio State 147 heading into the match. These teams are comfortable with possession and proficient in attack.
At kickoff, the temperature was 39 degrees (and dropping) and a breeze kept the flags − at half-mast in honor of Pearl Harbor Day − flapping.
From the outset, the Buckeyes looked like the No. 1 team in the country, which they’ve been since midseason. The Demon Deacons, who knocked off the defending national champions with a 2-1 overtime victory over Clemson in the previous round, were also brimming with confidence. This was a matchup between the champions of the Big Ten and the ACC. It had glitter.
By halftime, the Buckeyes had an edge in shots (11-3), shots on goal (5-2) and corners (3-1). The Demon Deacons had more than doubled up on fouls (12-5). These raw numbers tell the first-half story, for all practical purposes.
Trejo, the Man of the Match in a third-round shootout victory over Stanford the weekend previous, was called on to make a couple of difficult stops. But he was otherwise unbothered. The Buckeyes went forward and forced the Deacons to focus on their box defense, which was solid. Adedokun, Ajagbe and midfielders Parker Grinstead and Marko Borkovic had good looks, but were thwarted by shot blockers or Wake’s goalkeeper Trace Alphin.
Late in the first half, Alphin gave the Buckeyes the best chance to break a scoreless tie.
David Wrona. a sixth-year grad student who played four seasons for Wake Forest as an undergrad, was running onto a ball in the box (sent into space by Adedokun, of course) when Alphin charged forward to challenge. Wrona was taken down. After a look at VAR (video assistant referee), the central ref determined that Alphin had committed a foul in the box and he pointed to the penalty-kick spot. Adedokun stepped forward and converted, emphatically, with a well-struck penalty into the top, right corner of the goal. Alphin would have had no chance at stopping the shot even if he had made a good right-or-left guess, which he didn’t. The goal came with 5:49 remaining in the first half.
“He’s just so dangerous,” Maisonneuve said of Adedokun, who has 11 goals and 11 assists on the season. “He attracts so much attention. He’ll draw two or even three defenders on him. Then, he gets his head up finds his teammate. He’s been at a different level this year.”
A little over seven minutes into the second half, Pechota beat two men to the goal line and passed to a wide-open Ajagbe at the dot. Ajagbe put his shot just under the crossbar. It was 2-0.
Ten minutes later came the goal of the game. It captured the essence of how the Buckeyes like to play under Maisonneuve. There was an efficient buildup over three quarters of the field. There was a lovely give-and-go combination between Grinstead and Pechota on the right wing. There was a cross to the far post by Pechota to the Adedokun, the Buckeyes’ leading scorer. And there was Adedokun showing his technical swagger by waiting for the ball to drop to his feet before calmly touching a low shot past Alphin.
“Sometimes,” Adedokun said, “you don’t need the power. You just have to touch it.”
Beautiful.
“No pressure − just enjoy,” Adedokun said. “Everybody game in (with) fire. Whatever we want to do, we want to do because we’re family. … It’s my senior year. Last game on this field. Our goal is to win the national championship.
It was the seventh meeting between Ohio State and Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons won the first five, including a 2-1 victory over the Buckeyes in 2007 College Cup final. That was, by the way, the first and last time the Buckeyes went to the Final Four. Ohio State has won the last two meetings against Wake, including a 3-0 victory in the first round of the 2022 tournament.
“It was an emotional game,” Wrona said of playing against his former team. “I spent four years with a lot of those guys. I went over there right away to shake everyone’s hand. They had tears in their eyes. I remember being in the same position with them two years ago. They’re my first family.”
Ohio State is his second, and this week they’re taking a family trip to North Carolina, to chase history.
marace@dispatch.com

source

Post Views: 9