Monmouth soccer reaches CAA final as improbable turnaround continues

WEST LONG BRANCH – Monmouth men’s soccer inaugural season in the Coastal Athletic Association was an eye-opener. And after finishing last a year ago, the league’s 11 coaches picked the Hawks to finish tenth this season.

Fast forward to Sunday at Hesse Field on the Great Lawn, when Hawks’ goalie Eryk Dymora drilled the deciding penalty kick into the back of the net in a CAA Tournament semifinal to put the Hawks within a result of a league championship.

The dramatic turnaround continues to pick up speed with the second-seed’s win over sixth-seeded Elon. The game was scoreless after regulation and overtime. Penalty kicks were 4-2.

Now Monmouth (8-3-6) will try to win the school’s second CAA title – women’s basketball won the first last March – when it travels to face No. 17 Hofstra, with the two sharing the regular season title.

Hofstra topped Delaware, 4-1, in the other semifinal to improve to 12-2-4. Monmouth lost at Hofstra, 1-0, on Oct. 7 on a goal in the 85th minute. Monmouth hasn’t lost since, going 3-0-3. including a 1-1 draw with Ivy League champion Penn.

“It’s all really good character kids,” Monmouth head coach Rob McCourt said. “We set out a goal for ourselves of trying to win the regular season to do enough to get to the NCAA Tournament.

“Last year it was all new for us. We had a great team but I think the newness of the league, and little moments kind of went in the other direction. It was just that year of experience, we stuck by our principals of soccer and the little moments went our way. But it wasn’t easy.”

Another win would secure Monmouth’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since sweeping to the MAAC Tournament title during the pandemic-impacted 2021 spring season, when they advanced in the NCAAs with an opening-round win over Bowling Green.

The men’s soccer team was one of three Monmouth teams playing important games Sunday. The women’s soccer team lost in Sunday’s CAA final to top-seeded Towson, 2-1. And the field hockey team fell in the title game to William & Mary, 3-2.

Walk-on to All-CAA

Ben Zakowski, a fifth-year senior from Glen Rock, has a rise as improbable as this year’s team. As a walk-on freshman he scored seven goals in the final eight games of the 2019 season for a team that went 3-12-2. He’s now a first-team All-CAA selection with 31 career goals, including 11 this season.

“It’s been an incredible journey,” Zakowski said. “My freshman year, the team I was on didn’t perform very well. We weren’t very good. We were at the bottom of the league and I knew we needed to change and turn things around. The goal since I’ve been here is to win titles. I’m here to win and I think that is what the team culture has been about the last few years.”

Among Monmouth’s eight wins, Zakowski has six game-winning goals. And his goal in the 88th minute during the regular season earned the Hawks a 1-1 draw at Elon in September.

“He was pretty much under-recruited,” McCourt said. “When we checked him out I was like ‘this is a no-brainer,’ but at that stage he had to prove himself.”

Against Elon Saturday, it was Dymora, also a first-team Ala-CAA selection, who made a pair of tough saves in the opening 10 to keep the game scoreless. He has seven shutouts on the season.

“I feel like my job is to come up big in the big moments. Whenever my team needs me I have to step up like that,” said Dymora, a redshirt sophomore from Clifton. “I feel like this year I’ve matured a lot.”

After Monmouth and Elon played 110 minutes without a goal, it was Zakowski who fired the first penalty kick into the back of the net. Adrian Roseth and Olle Brorsson also made good on their kicks, before Dymora’s heroics pushed the Hawks forward.

Monmouth now has 10 regular season league titles since McCourt took over in 2004, and now looks to make it to the NCAA Tournament for the seventh time.

“It’s the passion. Everyone is so passionate about winning,” Dymora said. “We all live and die for each other.”

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Monmouth U soccer reaches CAA final as improbable turnaround continues