ITHACA, N.Y. – Junior Kisa Kiingi, along with sophomores Danny Lokko and Brennan Mallett, scored for the No. 16-ranked Cornell men's soccer team in the Big Red's 3-1 victory over Columbia in its regular-season finale at a rain-soaked Berman Field on Saturday afternoon.
"It was a fantastic performance," said John Smith, the Dr. Daniel P. Wood Head Coach of Men's Soccer. "Our first half was great, particularly the first 30 minutes of the first half. I thought we deservedly went ahead and created chances that we should probably have tucked away, but their keeper made some great saves. It was great to start [the second half] the way we did with a goal in the first minute. That kind of settled us a little bit. We had a spell in the second half where we weren't particularly moving the ball as well as we did in the first, that was largely down to Columbia. Then getting the third [goal] pretty much sealed the game."
Freshman goalkeeper Ryan Friedberg made one save in the match, extending his freshman wins record to 13. The one-save effort by Friedberg was a testament of the strong back line play from Cornell's Connor Drought, Cam Maquat, Mallett, and Nick Allen, who combined to allow just two shots on goal by the Lions.
"The back line did great," Smith said. "This game was a must-win game because we still had a chance of winning the league. It was a solid all-around performance. I thought we defended well, the whole 11 players defended well, and anytime you restrict a team to two shots, that's pretty good performance defensively."
With Cornell's win, coupled with Penn's road victory over Princeton, the Quakers claimed the Ivy League title and the automatic qualifier into the NCAA Tournament. Cornell concludes Ivy League play with a 5-1-1 record and in second place for a second consecutive year.
Cornell netted the first three goals of the game, which included a fourth-minute goal from Kiingi. Following a Cornell corner kick, Noel Ortega sent a cross from the left flank to the far past where Kiingi headed the ball into the bottom left corner of the goal.
After both teams were held scoreless for the remaining 41 minutes of the first half, Lokko found the back of the net 32 seconds into the second half to give the Big Red a two-lead cushion.
Emeka Eneli chipped the ball over a Columbia defender to Brandon Morales, leading the ball to deflect off Columbia's goaltender in an attempt to grab the ball. After the ball lofted in the air for a couple seconds, Lokko was able to get his body on the ball before it crossed the goal line.
The goal was Lokko's first goal of his collegiate career.
Mallett increased the Big Red's lead when he also registered his first collegiate goal in the 74th minute, heading in a cross from the right flank off the boot of Allen.
Columbia's Keenan Foley prevented Cornell from having its first clean sheet since Sept. 24 when he scored in the 84th minute.
Game Notes
• Saturday was the 61st all-time meeting between the Empire State foes. Cornell improved to 24-28-9 all-time over the Lions and is now unbeaten in its last four against Columbia (3-0-1), and outscoring the Lions by a 10-3 margin.
• Cornell concludes the regular season with a 13-3-1 record, its best mark in regular-season action since the 2012 team went 15-1-0.
• The 13 victories by the Big Red are the most since the aforementioned 2012 squad. It is just the fourth time in program history that Cornell has posted 13 wins in a season, also doing so in 1972 (13), 1995 (15), and 2012 (15).
• Mallett and Lokko became the fifth and sixth different Cornell players to record their first collegiate goals of the season, joining Noel Ortega, Dakota Jonke, Ben Goulding, and Westin Carnevale.
• Cornell's two shots on goal allowed were the seventh time this season giving up two shots on goal or less.
Looking Ahead
Cornell will find out if it has been selected for the 2022 NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship on Monday at 1 p.m. when the selection committee releases the 48-team field. The selection show will be broadcast on NCAA.com.
