MMA Opens Season With Impressive Win Over UNE

Castine, Maine – The Maine Maritime Academy Men’s Soccer team got their first opening day win since the 2004 season, collecting an impressive 2-1 victory over the visiting Nor’easters from the University of New England on Saturday. Sophomore Nate Tipton (West Chester, PA) had both goals on the match leading the Mariners to victory.

The Nor’easters started the scoring on the afternoon when Kiel Hiller (Galloway, NJ) scored an unassisted goal just 10-minutes into the match. The Mariners answered just minutes later when Tipton scored an unassisted goal to knot the match at 1-1. Tipton struck again in the 34^th minute off a feed from fellow sophomore Nick El-Hajj (Hampden, ME) giving MMA the 2-1 advantage and what proved to be the winning goal.

The second half featured an inspired UNE team which outshot MMA 21-4 but couldn’t find the back of the net for the equalizer. UNE had 33 to MMA’s 12 shots on the day.

MMA keeper Jeff Butland got the win for MMA making 9 saves on 33 shots. Jon Planer (Yarmouth, ME) took the loss for the Nor’easters making 5 saves on the afternoon. MMA improves to 1-0 on the season while UNE falls to 1-1.