Senior defender Tyler Lassiter helped to lead the North Carolina State men’s soccer team to victory Tuesday night against the Appalachian State Mountaineers as Lassiter scored both goals in the 2-1 match.
Being primarily a defender, Lassiter does not often score, much less twice in one game, but coach George Tarantini knows how multitalented his senior defender is.
”I just told Tyler that he’s doing a fantastic job,” Tarantini said. “I think he’s so good on defense and such an important player for us. I’m very proud because of all the things he does in a game for us, just like he did tonight. It was a game we need to win and we did and we played with intensity and played very tough. I thought we played with a lot of emotions and we did what we needed to win”
After losing 2-1 to their previous opponent Virginia Tech, the men’s soccer team knew it had to shake off the hard loss and hit the field knowing that it had to go out and get win.
“We were all very depressed about that loss,” Lassiter said. “It was a tough one to take but we knew we had more games to play and we had to forget about those and come out strong for the rest.”
Lassiter came out strong and scored the first goal of the night for either team, at the 5:31 mark. Lassiter scored a header off a throw in from junior defender Zane Tharkan, who made many big plays in his first career start.
“It felt great,” Tharkan said. “I couldn’t ask for better teammates to surround me when I was getting on the field. The coaches had a lot of trust in me so it didn’t make the start that much harder than any other game, it was just one big progression and a part of the flow of things.
“I just kind of played within myself, I didn’t really do anything extraordinary, just tried my best and played my hardest and the goal wouldn’t have happened if Tyler wasn’t there.”
Lassiter’s goal was the only one of the first half with State and Appalachian State attempting only two shots combined. It was not until the second half that Appalachian State evened the score at the 49:21 mark.
Less than a minute later, Lassiter stepped up and scored his second goal of the game and fifth of the season, drilling a penalty kick into the back of the net. But this time when Lassiter scored to give his team the lead, it would be for good.
“My two goals were good,” Lassiter said after the game. “But without Zane and Smitty drawing the fouls on the blocks I would have never had a chance so it’s all on them.”
Men’s soccer will next face No. 12 ranked Boston College on Saturday in their first away game after a three game home stretch.
”This game will probably be completely different than the Boston College game,” Tharakan said. “This game was more of a hardnosed effort, a blue collar effort to say the least. We’ll probably have to keep the ball a bit longer and be a bit smarter with our decisions. But every time we step on the field we expect to win and nothing will change when we go to Boston College.”
