No. 7 Maryland Men’s Soccer Earns 3-2 Win Over New Haven In Home Opener

Monday, August 24

College Park, MD

7 PM

Maryland

2-0-0, 0-0-0

New Haven

0-2-0, 0-0-0

Team	1	2	Final F
New Haven	1	1	2
Maryland	0	3	3

Leon Koehl celebrates a goal against New Haven

No. 7 Maryland Men’s Soccer Earns 3-2 Win Over New Haven In Home Opener

8/24/2026 7:00:00 PM | Men's Soccer

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The Terps downed the Chargers to claim their first 2-0 start since 2022.

COLLEGE PARK, MD — Goals by Henry Bernstein, Dominic Ayella, and Leon Koehl lifted the No. 7 Terps to a 3-2 win over New Haven in their first home match of the 2026 season. The win gave Maryland its first 2-0 start to a season since 2022 and pushed its regular-season unbeaten streak to 17 matches.

New Haven (0-2) scored on the first shot of the match and took a 1-0 lead into the halftime break, but Maryland scored three of four goals in a wild six-minute stretch early in the second half to rally and claim a thrilling win in the Terps' home opener.

What a goal to get the Terps on the board 🔥 https://t.co/VKP03ZxPKw pic.twitter.com/c97icuP3UA
— Maryland Men's Soccer 🐢 (@MarylandMSoccer) August 25, 2026

Bernstein netted Maryland's first goal of the night to tie the match, scoring his first of the season. 106 seconds later, Ayella gave the Terps their first lead as both Dennis Kalanzi and Koehl picked up assists.

DOM FOR THE LEAD https://t.co/GZQAOK9cd7 pic.twitter.com/Rnd7KR70ed
— Maryland Men's Soccer 🐢 (@MarylandMSoccer) August 25, 2026

New Haven tied the match in the 57th minute, but it only took Maryland another 23 seconds to reclaim the lead on a strike from Koehl that resulted in his first goal of 2026. Rocket Ritarita assisted on the goal and the Terps held on for the thrilling 3-2 victory.

MARYLAND REGAINS THE LEAD 😤 https://t.co/1gJiyRMcuu pic.twitter.com/rxXNHyfCVJ
— Maryland Men's Soccer 🐢 (@MarylandMSoccer) August 25, 2026

How it Happened:
1st Half:

New Haven opened the scoring on the first shot of the match in the fifth minute.
Maryland applied pressure with the first three corners of the night.
Rodrigo Neri posted the Terps' first shot in the 12th minute.
A shot from Franklin Affanyi forced a New Haven save in the 23rd minute.
Maryland fought off the Chargers' first corner in the 28th minute.
Kenny Quist-Therson narrowly missed tying the match with a look in the 33rd minute.
Maryland outshot New Haven 10-2 in the first half, but the Chargers led 1-0 at the break.

2nd Half:

Bernstein tied the match with an unassisted goal (2) in the 52nd minute.
Ayella's goal (1) in the 54th minute gave the Terps their first lead. Kalanzi (1) and Koehl (1) assisted on the goal.
New Haven tied the match in the 57th minute.
Koehl (1) gave the Terps the lead back with a goal in the 58th minute. Ritarita assisted (1) on the goal.
Maryland held on for the 3-2 win to improve to 2-0.

Sasho Cirovski's Corner:

"I thought we came out with the urgency that we needed to recover in the second half. You could see that there was a whole different mentality in how we played. We were more direct and quicker."
"This was a very good learning and growing opportunity for our team, and I think we'll get better from it."
"We want to be more on the front foot. We want to be able to put that kind of pressure on teams. We couldn't really do that in the first half, but the second half was very good."
"Leon met the moment. That was a wonderful goal. He's been working on it a lot, so it was a really good moment for Leon and the team."

Numbers to Know:

1: Maryland won the first-ever match between the Terps and New Haven.
2: The Terps are unbeaten in their last two home openers.
2: Maryland is 2-0 for the first time since 2022.
6: The second half featured four goals (three for Maryland) across a six-minute span.
10: The Terps have won their last 10 home matches in the regular season.
11: Maryland took 11 corners in the win.
17: The Terps pushed their unbeaten streak to 17 straight regular season matches.
19: Maryland used 19 players in the win.
23: New Haven tied the match for all of 23 seconds before Koehl's goal.
29: Maryland outshot New Haven 29-5.
106: The Terps' first two goals were separated by 106 seconds.