Houghton scores game-winner, which is his team-leading third of the season

BOXSCORE

RINDGE, N.H. (October 2, 2010) – The 11th-ranked Franklin Pierce University men’s soccer team jumped into first place in the Northeast-10 Conference standings on Saturday night with a satisfying 1-0 win over Southern Connecticut State at Sodexo Field in Rindge. The Ravens ran their win streak to five-straight matches and improved to 7-1 overall and 5-0 in the conference. SCSU fell to 7-2 and 5-2 in league play.

Sophomore midfielder Amory Houghton (Cape Elizabeth, Maine) provided all the scoring Franklin Pierce would need in picking up the win as he scored in the game’s 50th minute.

The goal was set up by junior midfielder Paul Latif (Newcastle, England), who earlier this week was named the conference’s player of the week, as he dribbled down the left-hand side of the field and deep into the left corner. He struck a crossing pass to the net, which Houghton raced to and jumped to knee the ball into the back of the goal for the tally.

It was Houghton’s third of the season, which enabled him to move into a tie for the team lead in goals with Latif and Victor Goncalves (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). Latif got credit with an assist on the play and raised his team-leading point total to 10. Latif has factored into each of the five game-winning goals during Franklin Pierce’s impressive winning streak. He has scored three of those, while assisting on the other two.

Franklin Pierce dominated play in the second 45 minutes as it out-shot the Owls 11-3. The Ravens owned a 15-5 advantage for the entire match.

Southern Connecticut tried to mount a comeback in the waning minutes, but Vinny Papageorgiou (Wilmington, Mass.) slammed the door shut on those chances by making three saves to earn the win for the Ravens and run his record to 7-1 on the year.

Houghton totaled five shots in the game, while Latif had four. Diego Tabares (Seekonk, Mass.) totaled three shots.

During the game, Franklin Pierce honored the fight against breast cancer as the team wore various pink items, including arm bands and shoe laces. Donations were collected and all money will benefit the Norris Cotton Cancer Center in the Kingsbury Pavilion at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Keene.

The Ravens return to action Tuesday night as they close out their four-game homestand by playing host to American International at 7 p.m.

For more information on Franklin Pierce men’s soccer, please visit the team’s page at athletics.franklinpierce.edu(.) Fans wishing to follow the program even further can do so by visiting YouTube (www.youtube.com/franklinpiercesports), Twitter (www.twitter.com/FPUathletics) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/franklinpierceathletics).