UMass Boston vs. Haverford College is the D3 soccer game nobody is talking about, but they should. On Sunday, the sides met and things went totally off the rails.
This D3 soccer game had 2 red cards, a headlock takedown, and a ref getting headbutted
James Dator has been covering a wide range of sports for SB Nation for over a decade, with a special focus on the NFL.
It should be noted that this video titled “UMassBoston Mens Soccer NCAA Tournament Dirty Plays” is definitely biased towards pointing out discretions by UMass Boston — so things could have been happening on the other side as well. That said, the video is pretty damning.
Incident 1: Ball drop kicked into opponent’s face.
After a Haverford player pulled down his opponent the UMass Boston player popped up immediately and drop kicked the ball right into his face. This could have been happenstance, but it was a red card anyway.
Incident 2: The headbutt that wasn’t called.
There’s absolutely no excusing this one. The Haverford player is getting back into position and cops a solid headbutt from a player he’s running past for seemingly no reason. The ref completely missed this one and nothing happened, even though it’s the most egregious thing in this video.
OR IS IT!
Incident 3: No. 77 goes off on everyone.
Within the span of about 15 seconds he rakes an opponent across the eyes, pulls another down and then headbutts the ref. Even if you think the Haverford player flopped on the supposed eye rake, the rest is absolutely out of control.
So far there’s been plenty of talk about the game on D3 message boards, but nothing official about any fallout because of the actions. UMass Boston went on to win on penalty kicks and will play in the third round of the NCAA tournament vs. Tufts.
