Scores four goals and becomes all-time leading scorer
MARQUETTE, Mich. — It was a historic day at the NMU Soccer Field, as senior captain Luca Rosen scored four goals in NMU’s 7-1 victory over Jamestown, becoming the program’s all-time leading scorer.
Entering the match, Rosen was three away from tying and four from breaking Sam Popp’s all-time goal record of 16. Popp played on the inaugural Wildcat team in 2016 and was with the program through the 2018 season. Rosen will now have his sights set on becoming the program leader in points, as he now holds 39, just one shy of matching Popp’s 40.
“I knew coming into today I needed four goals, but I thought, ‘ah, maybe not today’, and maybe I would have saved it for later in the season, but I found a way to do it… And it was special to do it at home. I would much rather have done it here than away, and with all the home fans, it was really awesome. Great support today, as always.”
It was another quick start for Rosen, as he scored a pair of goals in the opening two and a half minutes before completing his hat-trick just prior to the ten-minute mark. Securing a goal today, Rosen matches Calum Olpin and Ryan Palmbaum as one of just three players to score a goal in three consecutive matches for NMU.
Rosen’s hat-trick in 9:58 smashed the previous NMU men’s soccer record for the fastest three goals, set by David Feldmann, Eric Suess, and Ben Hoffman vs. Walsh on September 18, 2016, whose mark was 11:18.
Rosen’s opening tallies also topped the NMU record for fastest two goals, as Suess and Hoffmann scored 4:07 apart in that same game against Walsh in 2016.
The fastest hat-trick, however, remains untouched, and still belongs to Palmbaum, who scored three goals in just three minutes and 45 seconds at Upper Iowa in 2019.
What’s equally as impressive is how the goals were scored, with all three of the opening tallies coming as textbook one-touch passing plays through three men leading to the goal, and at the center of the distribution today was Sergio Cano Castro, Ian Weimer and Vinni DaSilva. Weimer and Cano Castro each assisted on the opening tally, before Weimer and DaSilva both added assists again on Rosen’s second and third goals.
“I think it’s our warm-up,” added Rosen when asked about the key to getting off the mark early. “We have a very important warm-up that gets us to match speed right away, so being able to step into the game ready to go instead of working up to match pace has been really important.”
Rosen completed the record-smashing performance 15 minutes into the second half, as Cano Castro played a pass to Rosen on the left side of the box and decisively found the bottom left corner. At the time of writing, Rosen’s eight tallies through five games pace the entire NCAA DII landscape.
“He’s amazing,” added assistant coach Chance Vang when speaking with nmuwildcats.com post-game. Vang took over duties as head coach in the wake of Alex Fatovic’s one-game suspension from last Sunday. “We’re all so proud of him and all the hard work he puts in, and it shows on the field. There’s no one more deserving to have that than Luca Rosen, and the fact that he was able to produce that within two years already, it’s been quite impressive, so we’re all so happy for him.”
The Wildcats got major contributions offensively all across the board today: Rosen’s four goals and eight points (both of which are single-game records for the Wildcats), Cano Castro scored his first goal for the Green and Gold to go along with three assists, Weimer added three assists, DaSilva a pair of helpers, and Sam Pilgrim and Noah Preston-Watkins each added a goal.
Both Cano Castro and Weimer’s three assists match the NMU single-game record, set by Sveinn Karlsson in 2016, and became just the second and third players in program history to record three assists in one game.
“It’s an impressive win with the boys,” added Rosen. “We came into this knowing it was going to be a tough game, but also knowing it was a must-win at home. We gave a lot of respect to Jamestown; they beat St. Cloud a couple of days before, and the coach said this is the first GLIAC test of the year. [Jamestown] beat a GLIAC team; now you have to go and beat them, and we started fast. So, it was an incredible start, and then I thought we managed the game really well. The last 10 seconds of the first half, we got a little bit complacent, and they scored. But we had a good team talk at the break, then came out fine in the second half.”
NMU was in control all afternoon, as the ‘Cats paced the Jimmies in shots (23-5) and shots on goal (9-3). Redshirt freshman goalie Carson Shene made his regular season debut for the ‘Cats, making two saves in his first 90 minutes as a Wildcat.
“Overall, very, very proud of the boys and how we handled the day,” added assistant coach Vang. “One of our biggest topics and key points was adversity, and how to be resilient through the adversity. We had a tough challenge in preseason and going into our non-conference matches, and we felt like we learned a lot through the process with this being the last non-conference game. We feel like [the preseason and non-conference schedule ] has taught us a lot, and it’s given us some momentum going into GLIAC play.”
And with that, the Wildcats (3-2-0, 0-0-0 GLIAC) closed the non-conference slate and look to open GLIAC play. The Wildcats will travel to familiar territory, as the team will open the conference schedule at Saginaw Valley on Friday, September 18, before a meeting with Davenport on Sunday, September 20.
