Villanova beats No. 11 Boston College for first win; Temple wins fourth straight

Villanova’s twin towers – 6-foot-4 freshman Jacob Anderson and 6-foot-6 Paidrac McCullaugh – scored goals in each half to lead Villanova to an upset of 11th-ranked Boston College on Sunday.

McCullough, a senior from Sacramento, fired home from 15 yards out off a pass from Lucas Hodges shortly after entering the match in the 31st minute to put the Wildcats ahead. They held onto the lead until 51st minute when Maximilian Schulze-Geisthovel scored his fourth goal of the season.

BC had a couple chances to take the lead but junior goalkeeper Will Steiner made a “couple of ridiculous” saves as head coach Tom Carlin called them after the game to keep things level and set up Anderson’s 87th minute winner.

The goal, a calm finish off a corner kick, was the first of the Altadena, California native’s career and came against the run of play in a second half that saw the Eagles outshoot the visitors 14-3. Freshmen defender Shane Bradley, a Union Academy grad, and Nikkye DePoint held firm under pressure and Steiner came up with five of his six saves in the second half.

With the win, Nova improves to 1-2-0 ahead of a Thursday afternoon visit from Navy at Higgins Soccer Complex.

Temple beats up on Northeastern for fourth straight win

Temple Sports Complex is less than a month old and already it’s becoming a fortress for the Owls, which dispatched of Northeastern 3-0 on Sunday afternoon for their fourth straight home win to open the season.

Jorge Gomez Sanchez scored his fourth of the season off a free kick and also set up Kevin Klett’s first career goal to lead the Owls while defender Carlos Moros Gracia was key again both on offense and defense, setting up freshman George McGee’s first career goal.

As they have in every game so far, the Owls put Northeastern under constant pressure, outshooting the Huskies 16-4.

Khesanio Hall, Brendan Massie, and Khori Bennett, who played for Reading United this summer, each threatened with shots on goal but Temple goalkeeper Alex Cagle did well to cut down all three attempts and record his third clean sheet of the season.

Union Academy grad Kevin Carvalho played 27 minutes as a substitute for Northeastern in the match. The score could have been even more lopsided if not for a pair of quality first half saves from goalkeeper Jonathan Thuresson, one off a rope from freshman Albert Moreno and another off a point blank shot by Joonas Jokinen.

With the win, the Owls are now 11-1-2 in games played in August and September over the past two seasons.

Drexel and St. Joe’s upended

In the lone local game on Saturday, Drexel blew a lead to Iona and fell 2-1 while St. Joe’s lost 4-1 to Pitt on Sunday.

Ilai Shvika scored the Dragons’ first goal of the season off a long throw-in from Jameson Detweiler, but two goals conceded after Iona went down to 10 men gave the Gaels the improbable victory.

Defender Jonathan Proctor was shown red in the 71st minute, but rather than give the visitors the advantage it seemed to spark the home side’s offense as Killian Colombie scored in the 75th minute and Marcos Nunez bagged a winner in the 83rd.

St. Joe’s lost their third straight to start the season and Pitt left Philadelphia with a split of weekend games with a 4-1 win, their first of the season.

Freshman Isaac Agyapong scored a late consolation for the Hawks to spoil the clean sheet but three first half goals – one just three minutes in by Raj Kahlon – were too much to overcome. Luca Mellor had a brace and Matt Venanzi also scored for the Panthers.