On his 23rd birthday, senior Jamal Shteiwi netted two goals to carry the Kentucky men?s soccer team to a 3-0 victory over Buffalo on Sunday afternoon at RAC Field.
Looking to fight back from a heartbreaking 1-0 overtime loss to No. 13 Michigan on Friday, the well-played contest was exactly what the Wildcats needed.
?We responded exactly the way a good team is supposed to respond after a tough loss,? said Kentucky coach Ian Collins. ?We had two choices. We could have felt sorry for ourselves or we could have come out and really gotten into the game. Our players took it exactly right.?
Shteiwi provided the Wildcats an early spark by scoring in the ninth minute. He scored from eight yards out after being fed by Anthony Peters and Riley O?Neill.
Less than two minutes later, the Buffalo defense tried to play the ball out of the box, but it rolled right to Michael D?Agostino who buried a shot from 18 yards out for a 2-0 lead.
?We approached the game right and were very professional in our preparation. We scored two early goals and drove on from there,? Collins said. ?I?m very happy with our guys. They proved they are a tough-minded team today.?
Kentucky (7-3-1, 3-0 Mid-America) won its ninth consecutive conference game dating back to the beginning of the 2003 season. The Wildcats have won seven of their last nine overall and seven of eight in the series.
Meanwhile, Buffalo (6-4-1, 0-2 MAC) has now dropped back-to-back league games after falling to No. 21 Akron on Friday.
After falling behind early, the Bulls pressed forward for the remainder of the game to try to force chances. Buffalo got seven shots on goal, but most of them came from far outside the box and provided easy saves for Kentucky goalkeeper Andy Gruenebaum, who notched his third shutout of the season.
?To Buffalo?s credit, they stuck at it. They threw a lot of bodies at us in the second half. They?re always a tough team and this is a good win for us,? Collins said.
With the Wildcats tiring in the second half, Collins emptied the bench, which provided a spark over the final 25 minutes. After Kentucky failed to capitalize on a number of scoring chances, Shteiwi broke through for his second goal in the 73rd minute.
?The bench today really provided a vital spark,? Collins noted. ?It was good to see everybody get a game and we needed them.?
Kentucky returns to action on Wednesday when it hosts second-ranked and defending national champion Indiana at 7:30 p.m. at the UK Soccer Complex. In the last meeting between the two schools, the Hoosiers escaped with a 2-1 overtime victory in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
