2004 NE-10 TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL #4 Franklin Pierce Stuns Top-Seeded Southern Conn., 2-0
Ravens end nine-match winless streak, post just second win ever, at SCSU
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (November 3, 2004) - Fourth-seeded Franklin Pierce kept its NCAA Tournament hopes alive with a huge 2-0 upset of top-seeded and No. 2-ranked Southern Connecticut State University in semifinal round action of the Northeast-10 Conference men's soccer tournament at Jess Dow Field tonight.
Franklin Pierce (15-5, 10-3 NE-10) advances to its first Northeast-10 Championship match since joining the Conference in 2000 and travels to third-seeded and No. 19-ranked UMass Lowell on Sunday at 1 p.m. The River Hawks reached the title match with a 1-0 upset at second-seeded and No. 9 Le Moyne College earlier today. UML, the defending NE-10 Tournament champions, will be playing in its third-straight title game.
Southern Connecticut (15-1-3, 11-0-2 NE-10), which suffers its first loss of the season, is pretty much a lock for the NCAA Tournament with bids to be announced on Monday.
The win ends streak of ten straight losses to Southern Connecticut for Franklin Pierce dating back to a 4-3 regular season victory over the Owls on October 7, 1995, in Rindge, N.H. The win is also just the second in program history at Southern, ending a nine-match winless streak in New Haven, dating back to a 1-0 decision in a New England Collegiate Conference semifinal on November 8, 1991. The Ravens are now 2-9-2 at SCSU against the Owls in program history.
After both teams felt each other out in a scoreless first half, grad student Christopher Joyce (Jarrow, England) opened the scoring just 5:15 into the second half when he received a cross from senior back Kyle Miller (Newburgh, N.Y./Newburgh Free Academy), turned a fired a shot into the upper right corner of the net.
"It was a bit of a cat and mouse game in the first half," said Franklin Pierce Head Coach Marco Koolman. "To be honest, I thought (Southern) were a bit flat and really didn't come to life until after we scored."
With Southern pressing forward for the equalizer, Franklin Pierce got an insurance marker in the 85th minute as sophomore Jason Grier (Norwell, Mass./Norwell) headed in a free kick from grad student Tom McNeil (Paisley, Scotland) at the far post into the left corner of the goal.
Freshman goalkeeper James Thorpe (East Longmeadow, Mass./Bridgton Academy) added to his program record shutout total with his 12th of the season with a five-save effort. Thorpe has not yielded a goal in his last 359:30 in net for the Ravens, which added to their program record shutout total with the 14th clean sheet of the year as a team. The shutout is also the first for the Ravens against the Owls since the 1-0 decision in the 1991 NECC semifinal.
SCSU freshman goalkeeper Timothy Doheny (Wayne, N.J./Wayne Valley) registered three stops on the night.
The win avenges a 3-2 setback to the Owls during the regular season at Jess Dow Field back on October 20, in which the Ravens found themselves down 2-0 after 20 minutes and trailing 3-0 with 11-minutes to play before rallying within a goal in the closing minutes.
"The players were more committed and convinced they could beat this team tonight," said Koolman. "We figured out how we needed to play and concentrated on the game plan to be patient and keep possession."