Dukes Open Season with Tightly Contested Draw

Sunday, February 21

Harrisonburg, Va.

5 p.m.

James Madison University

0-0-1, 0-0-0

Liberty

3-0-1, 0-0-0

Liberty

James Madison

2/21/2021 9:35:00 PM | Men's Soccer

Box Score Photo Gallery

HARRISONBURG, Va. – James Madison men's soccer opened up a rare spring season with a tightly contested scoreless draw against Liberty on Sunday evening at Sentara Park.

Rodrigo Robles led the Dukes with three shots and one on goal, with a quartet of Dukes taking two shots. TJ Bush spent the entire 110 minutes in goal and posted six saves, as he moved into a first place tie for career shutouts at JMU with his 26th.

HOW IT HAPPENED
The Dukes came out firing to begin the game, with Carson Jeffris firing the first shot in the fourth minute. The Dukes were close to opening up the scoring when freshman Axel Ahlander took a clean shot, but hit the cross bar. Ahlander would have another shot blocked, and classmate Ethan Taylor would also take a shot that went high before the first half ended. The Dukes outshot Liberty seven to one in the opening half.

Liberty flipped the script in the second half though, firing a shot that went wide right in the 57^th minute. The Flames would put another shot on goal three minutes later. Liberty had their best chance at taking the lead in the 85^th minute as Gabe Findley had an open look to the right half of the goal, but a diving stop by Bush kept the game knotted up. The two teams would head into overtime with the score still scoreless.

Not much occurred in the first overtime period, until under 10 seconds left. Rodrigo Robles took a pass and sent it into the back of the net for the would be win, but time had ended just prior to getting the goal scored. The second overtime period saw the Dukes take four shots in the span of two and a half minutes, but couldn't find the back of the net with any. The team would continue to fight for the remaining time, but eventually the period ended and left the teams with a 0-0 draw.

GAME NOTES

JMU took 13 corner kicks compared to Liberry's six.
The Dukes outshot the Flames 5-1 in overtime.
Each team took seven shots separate halfs during regulation.

HEAR FROM HEAD COACH PAUL ZAZENSKI
"The best part of tonight was just being back in a game day environment in whatever capacity. Our guys played well in stints but were not as complete tonight as we would have liked to be. It will take some time to get back to the pace of play and physicality needed to compete at the highest of levels. It's been a long journey to get back to playing and I commend our players for their resilience throughout."

UP NEXT
The Dukes travel to Fairfax, Va. to take on George Mason next Saturday, February 27. Kickoff is scheduled for 2 p.m.