The Michigan men’s soccer team’s season opener was a cagey, defensive affair, as both the Wolverines and their opponents, Loyola-Chicago, played cautiously and created a dearth of chances.
As is often the case in such tepid fixtures, it came down to one moment to decide the result.
And senior midfielder Charlie Lawrence gave Michigan that moment. In the 62nd minute, Lawrence made a late run into the box and fired in a shot that trailed under the feet of the Ramblers’ defense for the only goal of the match. The goal sent his teammates, and the U-M Soccer Stadium, into raptures.
“He was just where he’s supposed to be,” Michigan coach Chaka Daley said. “He did his job, and he put himself in the right spot for when there was an action on the goal.”
Lawrence’s task all game was to find that “right spot.” Nominally a midfielder, he was effectively deployed as an auxiliary striker, focusing on attacking the box with prodding runs and waiting for the right moment. He wasn’t playing the more typical midfield roles of a possession-controller with the most touches on the night, or a physical ball-winner at the end of every challenge, but his role proved vital nonetheless.
Finding that spot didn’t come easily, though. The Wolverines and Loyola both employed a defensive style of play, building up slowly and maintaining numbers in their own halves, which led to a scarcity of scoring opportunities for both teams. Lawrence himself, despite his excellent positioning and attacking runs, managed just three shots, and two of them were poor.
But Lawrence did have one quality shot, and he didn’t throw it away.
“The whole game, I was trying to work my way into the box,” Lawrence said. “I knew that (junior midfielder Nicholas Cassiday) was gonna cross-shot towards that sort of area. So I knew at some point it was hopefully gonna pop out to me, right place, right time, and (I’d) just put it in the back of the net.”
After his team struggled out wide in the first half, Daley adjusted his tactics in the second half. He brought on Cassiday, who was an immediate threat on the right flank, and allowed sophomore right-back Matthew Fisher to push further up the field and join the attack. This overload of the right wing created more space in the center of the pitch, with defenders occupied by the blitz out wide.
And it was this space in the box that Lawrence entered, with a direct, well-timed run. From there, all he had to do was wait for Crawford to tip away Cassiday’s curling shot from the right.
The finish was simple — the run, with the timing and positional intelligence it displayed, was more impressive.
“It’s a big part of my game now,” Lawrence said. “I tried to implement it over the summer. I’ve been working really hard on those more intense runs forward and helping the team in the final third. I think today, it was nice to reap the rewards of that hard work and get myself a goal from those hard runs.”
The shot was just enough to leave Crawford and the Ramblers’ backline in the dust and break the deadlock. Lawrence wheeled away to the touchline in ecstasy, mobbed by his joyful teammates — a dreary night for both teams was crying out for a hero, and Lawrence stepped into the role for Michigan.
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