Men's Soccer Concludes 2008 Season in ECAC Tournament

In the first round of the 2008 ECAC Tournament the Penn State Behrend Lions faced off against Wilkes University on the artificial turf at Gannon University on Wednesday, November 12.

The colonels came away with a 2-1 win in overtime and advanced to the ECAC semi-finals, while the blue and white closed out its season at 13-8-1.

Wilkes came into the match-up after losing in the Freedom Conference finals on penalty kicks to Misericordia, and improved to 11-7-3.

The first 45 minutes was evenly played to a scoreless tie, with both teams focusing on making it a defensive half. Each team took only a handful of shots with Behrend holding a five to three advantage on attempts.

After another twenty minutes of scoreless action in the second frame, Behrend's leading point scorer, Ahmad Salim (Cranberry/Seneca Valley) made a strong attempt at breaking through but goalie TJ Baloga made an outstanding deflection. However, Mike Seth's (Pittsburgh/Baldwin) left foot connected off the rebounded shot to provide the blue and white with a brief moment of elation. Wilkes responded within thirty seconds as Doug Moore found Troy Gibson to immediately tie the contest.

With the game knotted at one apiece through 90 full minutes, it appeared as another overtime would be necessary. Then Greg Miller hit Moore at the 6:42 mark of the overtime to propel the Colonels to a 2-1 win.

Dustin Walker (Apollo/Kiski) made five saves in goal for the blue and white, while Baloga stopped eight shots for Wilkes. Wilkes will advance to play the winner of the Kings versus Widener Game on Saturday.