The Army West Point Men’s Soccer team displayed pure dominance in its 4-0 victory in the 14th edition of the Army-Navy Cup at Subaru Park on October 10 in front of a record crowd of 11,363 as part of the Army-Navy Star Series Presented by USAA.
Army (4-4-4) was dominant in every single aspect of the game, recording a season-high 13 shots on goal en route to the second-largest margin of victory in the Brian Plotkin era. Navy (3-6-4) struggled to establish anything on the Black Knights’ defense, registering just one shot on goal, which came in the 90th minute and was turned away by CDT Michael Guiry ’28.
The Black Knights immediately took control of the game from the opening kickoff. They were rewarded in the 15th minute after CDT Jack Kryger ’28 headed home a beautiful cross from CDT Jack Meyer ’26 to give Army the opening goal.
Army continued controlling the pace of the game, but Navy started to find some traction in the final 15 minutes of the opening half. The Black Knights went into the locker room with a goal advantage. Army outshot Navy 9-4 in the first 45 minutes, which included a 6-0 shot on goal advantage.
Entering the second half, Army returned to the strong play it had in the opening 30 minutes of the game. The Black Knights doubled their lead with an impressive goal by CDT Riley Cullum ’27, who fired a right-footed shot that snuck inside the right post in the 58th minute. Meyer was credited with his second assist of the night. The goal was the first of Cullum’s career.
CDT Jubril Bamgbala ’27 erupted in the 71st minute, scoring two goals in the span of 53 seconds to put the game out of reach for the Midshipmen. Defender CDT Owen Ennis ’27 recorded an assist on the third goal, with Bamgbala doing all the work on the fourth score of the night.
The four-goal margin of victory is the largest in the 14 years of the Army-Navy Cup. The Black Knights won 4-1 in 2018. The last time Army scored four goals in any game was October 14, 2022, when they defeated Bucknell at home 4-1.
Army finished the night with 24 shots and 13 on goal, both are season highs. The last time the Black Knights had more than 13 shots on goal was when it had 15 against Merchant Marine in 2020.
The Black Knights held the edge in corner kicks, 2-0. Guiry now moves to 4-2-3 on the year and has five shutouts this season.
Plotkin is now 3-1-1 against Navy in his tenure as the Black Knights head coach and 5-1-1 against the academy schools (2-0-0 vs. Air Force). The current Army senior class has not lost in the Army-Navy Cup, as the Black Knights are 3-0-1 over the last four seasons.
The excerpt and image were taken from https://goarmywestpoint.com.
