Rowan men’s soccer dominated William Paterson 4-0 in a much needed victory on Saturday, Oct. 12.

In their first game since the tough 1-0 loss to Washington (MD) College where Rowan out-shot Washington 18-1, a similar game script went in the favor of the Profs, as shots were converted to goals.  

“We’ve had a few games like that, and we didn’t get the win,” Head Coach, Scott Baker said. “It feels like it’s been too long of us dominating without just a clean win like that. We had it coming, and hopefully, we have a lot more coming. We’ll have to see how the momentum builds moving forward, but tonight it feels great. The guys deserve it, we were able to rotate guys that deserve to get in that haven’t been able to and that feels real good.”

Jake Homowitz gave the Profs a lead they never looked back from at the 24:53 mark. He had some space and dribbled through the box to sink a low-right corner shot passed the diving goalkeeper. He finished with a goal and an assist on the day.  

“They were sitting back pretty deep,” Homowitz said. “Coach was talking about picking up spaces where I can drive into the box, and that’s exactly what I did. I dropped in and started driving forward. I saw the open shot and took it.”

Just under five minutes later, at 29:44, Homowitz dribbled through the box again and fed the ball to Davide Caputo on the left side.

“Davide and I have a great connection on the field,”  Homowitz said. “He was running, and I heard my name. I usually know where he’s running, and I didn’t see it out of my eyes. I just heard his voice, so I just played it to where I thought he was going to be, and he was there.”

Caputo shot to the bottom corner, ringing off the post before hitting the back of the net and giving Rowan the 2-0 lead early on.  

“I just saw that the lane was open,” Caputo said. “I called his name out and I don’t think he saw me at first. With me calling his name, he saw me and slipped [the ball] in and I just trusted my instincts. I put it in the bottom left corner, and I thought it was going out at first, but it hit the post and snuck right in. It was perfect.”

Getting those early goals meant a lot to the Profs, as it took a lot of the pressure off both the offense and the defense. Once that pressure was gone, the second half went about as smoothly as possible.  

“It’s very important,” Caputo said. “Scoring early is something we like to do, just to break the other teams’ spirit and keep the ball. We didn’t let them play with it much, and the goals came in the second half just from doing that.”

The spirit of William Paterson was, indeed, broken in the second half. Rowan took away the Pioneer chemistry, as they couldn’t get on the same page in the second half to try to make a comeback.

“It means a ton to get the early goals,” Baker said. “It means a lot to get the goals and defend the whole game and get a shutout. All of it is important, but obviously, the two-goal lead early helps a lot.”

The Profs will take this energy into their week on the road. After a few games that just didn’t go in Rowan’s favor, the squad looks back on track and ready to continue their dominance in the New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC).

“Today is what we should normally look like,” Baker said. “I think it was a great effort, but I think we could do this against a lot of teams, and even better. If we bring that energy and tire teams out, the rest of the season is going to look really different for us.”

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