The Wingate’s men’s soccer team battled to a hard-fought 1-1 draw on the road against Lenoir-Rhyne in the South Atlantic Conference on Sept. 20, but the final score told very little of the story.
The Bulldogs found themselves in a tough spot after defender Hipo Delhaes picked up a straight red card for a late tackle in the 18th minute and Wingate played the final 73 minutes a man down. Wingate opened the scoring with a header by forward David Jonsson in the 39th minute, assisted by defender Noah Yalu from a free kick. Lenoir-Rhyne answered in the second half in the 59th minute with a goal by forward Hector Taboada and Wingate withstood a barrage of shots over the final 30-plus minutes to preserve the draw.
Overall, Lenoir-Rhyne took 41 shots, the third-highest single-game mark in NCAA Division 2 this season, and held a 16-5 advantage in shots on goal. Facing that relentless barrage was true freshman goalkeeper Cole Freeman, who racked up a career-high 15 saves in a performance that earned him SAC Defensive Player of the Week honors for the second time this season.
“When you are in the game, the only thing you think of is the next action,” said Freeman. “You don’t really know the amount of pressure you sustained until after the game is over.”
Despite playing with a man down, Freeman noted that Jonsson’s early strike simplified the team’s objective. “Now your only focus is protecting a win, even though we were unable to achieve that,” Freeman said.
A lightning delay halted play with 62 seconds remaining. After a 45-minute wait, officials called the match. “I have complete faith that we would not concede in the final seconds,” Freeman said. “Knowing that if we played without the storm, the only two possible results would have been a draw or a win for us.”
Heading into Wingate’s Sept. 26 game with Anderson, Freeman had logged almost 539 minutes in the net and ranked first in the SAC in save percentage (.853) and saves per game (4.83). His goals-against average of 0.84 was third in the conference.
Freeman came into the season as a little-known entity out of Ardrey Kell High School in Charlotte, but earned the confidence of the Wingate coaching staff in preseason with his vocal, commanding style and surprisingly won the starting job.
This is the third team for which he has seemingly come out of nowhere to claim a starting job.
He did it first at Ardrey Kell, where as a little-used backup he got a chance to start as a sophomore after four games and never saw the bench again.
Over the last two summers, playing against older players in his hometown for the semi-pro Charlottetowne Hops of the National Premier Soccer League, he further established himself. He came on the second half of a May 23 game last year against the Burlington United FC and never looked back, becoming a starter again. Standing barely 6-0 and 155 pounds with strawberry blond hair, he doesn’t exactly look intimidating standing between the sticks—but looks can be deceiving.
“My biggest strengths are that I’m vocal, I’m good with my feet and I claim the box,” Freeman said in a Charlottetowne Hops press release. “I own the 18-yard box.”
He believes the semi-pro opportunity took his game to another level.
“The level was a lot faster, the guys were a lot bigger,” Freeman said in the release. “You have to be really confident in yourself, or else you’re going to get hurt.”
His advice to young goalkeepers? “Don’t ever sleep on an opportunity. Treat every chance like it’s your last, one pursue it with everything you’ve got.”
