NEW YORK — The Columbia men's soccer team fought and clawed its way to a, 0-0, draw on Saturday night in the 2023 season finale at Rocco B. Commisso Soccer Stadium. Senior goalkeeper Michael Collodi matched his career-high with 10 saves in his final match as a Lion.
Collodi's 10-save performance ends his Columbia career with 237, surpassing both Jeff Micheli (1984-87) and Steve McAnulty on Columbia's all-time saves list. He will go down in the Columbia record book No. 2 all-time in saves.
"I think it's huge for the team to go out on a bang in the last game," Collodi said. "The energy that was brought out here by the audience and the team was amazing to see and I couldn't have asked for a better game to finish with."
A lively and spirited crowd cheered on the Lions during a comfortably cool fall evening. It all began with a Senior Night ceremony before kickoff, honoring the careers of Collodi, Matthew Leong, Jack Muoio, Jake Novoshelski, David Walley, Yusuf Hafez, Will DeNight and Ryan Wallace. Their friends and family joined them on the field for the pregame festivities.
There wasn't much in it for either side during the first 10 minutes of the match. However, things got chippy and physical early on with the first caution of the night being shown to Jackson ten Oever in the 21st minute. All told, there were five yellow cards shown, as well as a staggering 30 combined fouls called.
Collodi made three of his saves in the first 45 minutes. Each team had taken six shots at the half with Cornell the lone side to put any on goal.
The second half was an onslaught of shots from the visiting side. Playing for their Ivy League Tournament lives, the Big Red (8-4-3, 2-2-3 Ivy) fired 15 attempts at Collodi. He saved seven of them and watched the other eight sail off target.
"I thought Cornell was really good on the night but our guys battled and made it really difficult for them," Columbia head coach Michael Casper said. "I thought we gave Cornell everything they could handle. The second half got a little hairy with Cornell creating a number of chances, but we stood tall and I thought Michael was fantastic. He made a number of big saves and his presence back there just means so much to us. I'm really happy for him to get a clean sheet on his senior night."
Two big calls in the second half helped secure the scoreless draw. The first came in the 67th minute when Cornell found the back of the net. The assistant referee's flag stayed down but the decision was overturned following a conversation with the head official.
A second goal was waved away with 47 seconds remaining. This time, the assistant referee's flag went up immediately to signal offside. The head official had another lengthy conversation with his assistant but the offside decision would stand.
One of Columbia's best scoring opportunities of the night came with exactly 27 minutes left in the first half. Joao Lima sent a free kick into the area that was headed back out toward the far corner of the box. Adrien Wheaton-Schopp was there waiting for it and got off a clean look through several bodies that bounced just wide of goal.
The match concludes Columbia's 2023 campaign with a record of 2-8-4 and an Ivy League record of 0-5-2.
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