After playing to a 0-0 tie in its Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) opener against Quinnipiac and falling to Monmouth 1-0, the Iona men’s soccer team showed resiliency as they beat Rider 3-1.

During a grueling matchup that went into second overtime, the Quinnipiac Bobcats put up a fight against the Gaels, as neither teams could come up with a goal. Despite the good performance of redshirt freshman goalie Julian Petrello, who saved a career high of nine shots, the Gaels had to head into their next battle against Monmouth with a tie under their belts.

Monmouth turned out to be no easy task for the Gaels either, as this time Iona fell 1-0 against the Hawks. Fourteen fouls did not help Iona, compared to Monmouth’s eight. The Hawks were also able to hinder the amount of scoring opportunities the Gaels had, as they outshot them 14-8. In front of their home crowd, the Hawks executed an attack in the 79th minute of the game. Senior midfielder Joseph Schmid helped setup his teammate, freshman forward Dave Nigro, who scored the deciding goal in the game.

Heading back to Mazzella Field, the Gaels had to prepare for their conference home opener against the Rider Broncs. Instead of letting the last game get in their heads, the team rose to the occasion and responded to their home crowd in a 3-1 victory over the dangerous 6-3-1 Broncs. Junior Ignacio Maganto electrified his team with a career day scoring hat-trick, sending the Gaels to victory.

Maganto exemplified true characteristics of a leader.

“My teammates helped me to score the three goals,” Maganto said in a postgame interview on icgaels.com.

Senior Franklin Castellanos assisted Ignacio on two of his goals, characterizing a team effort in the crucial win for the Gaels. Iona struck early and often in the contest against Rider, as two of Maganto’s goals came in the first half.

Castellanos is proud of his teammate’s performance.

“Obviously that is going to give him confidence to keep scoring,” Castellanos said in a postgame interview on icgaels.com.

In the 31st minute Rider began to fight back as freshman defender Warren Holmes put his team on the board with a header off of a corner kick goal. Remembering last year’s high scoring game against Rider, Iona knew it would be in for a fight this time around and responded with another goal by Maganto.

“What we took from last year’s crazy 6-5 win was that you can’t sleep, we can’t rely on getting a lead and just sitting on a lead,” head coach Fernano Barboto said in a postgame interview on icgaels.com. “During half time what we said was we need to go out there and continue with the energy, pressing, possession and be very technical, and get that third goal to finish them off.”

The Gaels were scheduled to host Fairfield on Oct.16. The result was not available at press time. Iona will take on the Siena Saints Oct.19 in Loudonville, NY. They return home for a match-up against Marist on Oct. 23 at 3:00 p.m.