MEADVILLE, Pa. – The Allegheny College men's soccer team was defeated by local rival Penn State-Behrend, 3-0, from a rain-soaked Frank B. Fuhrer Field this evening.
Allegheny (2-3-1) was able to get almost all of its chances on target (4 SOG), but Penn State-Behrend (4-1-2) created more opportunities by holding a 15-5 shot advantage.
Sophomore midfielder
Jon Sion provided the Gators their first dangerous scoring opportunity in the 32nd minute when he gathered a poor clearance from the Lions left back and carried it into the box, but his shot was saved by a charging Chris Ralph.
In the 36th minute, Behrend had something brewing when Matt Dziadosz found some spacing just outside of the box. He ripped a low cross that was traveling towards a target forward, but junior goalkeeper
Chris DeNelle slid across to stop it.
The visitors struck two minutes later when a loose ball in the box was headed by Aaron Harris towards Dziadosz, who calmly slotted it past DeNelle towards the far post.
Allegheny had another dangerous chance when it earned a free kick about 13 yards out. It looked like the Gators would get their fourth goal on a set piece over the last two matches, but Ralph reacted just quick enough to stop senior defender
Liam McNamee's blast at the near post.
With just 19 seconds remaining in the first half, sophomore defender
Liam McKersie was shown a red card for pulling down Ryan Maurer on a clear breakaway.
Dziadosz scored his second goal in the 61st minute, curling a free kick over the Allegheny wall and into the top-right corner. Anthony Crivelli added the Lions' third goal just 10 minutes later with a left-footed shot from inside the box.
DeNelle made two saves in his first career start. Ralph stopped all four shots he faced to register the shutout.
Allegheny is back in action on Monday, Sept. 19 at 7:00 p.m. when it travels to No. 21 Carnegie Mellon.
