The West Chester University men’s soccer team has had a successful week. Since Oct. 2nd when they played at Wilmington University, and had a rough 4-1 loss, the men have bounced back nicely in two home wins against Shippensburg University and Goldey-Beacom University. They now sit second in the PSAC standings, only two points behind Mercyhurst.
West Chester took on Shippensburg at home on Saturday Oct. 8th at 3:30 p.m. In what became a good matchup, the Rams were able to pull out a 1-0 overtime win, on Tommy Ryan’s overtime goal. The game was physical from the start when Shippensburg’s Derrick Roy received a yellow card 53 seconds into the game, which in turn caused West Chester’s Dan Venuto to be diagnosed with a concussion. This forced him to miss the remainder of this game and the following game against Goldey-Beacom. He is unsure of how long he will be out.
The game had a total of five yellow cards, four of them were against Shippensburg. The game traded close calls the entire time, as West Chester had fourteen shots, ten of them on goal, but Shippensburg’s goalie, Clay Sale, was ready to play as he had nine vital saves in regulation. Ryan Shultz for West Chester also had six crucial saves, including a team save for West Chester late in the game, that arguably saved the game for West Chester. As both teams battled for ninety minutes, it was to no end; both teams had zero on the scoreboards. They went into overtime, and just three and a half minutes into overtime, junior Tommy Ryan put it into the upper right hand corner of the net to win the game for West Chester. This PSAC game put West Chester at 4-1-1 in the standings, with 13 conference points, just behind Mercyhurst’s 15 points.
Next up for West Chester was a non-league game against Goldey-Beacom, at home in a rainy, miserable affair on Thursday. Goldey-Beacom has been struggling on the season, as they came into the game 2-8-1, and West Chester came in at 4-3-2. West Chester got off to a slow start, as it took them 38 minutes to score the first goal as Josh Labick scored his first goal of the season off an assist from John Gabel. After that, the floodgates opened for West Chester, and the wheels fell off for Goldey-Beacom. Two minutes later, Brett Beaumont netted his first career goal on an assist from David Green. West Chester went into the half leading 2-0, and came out into the second half, confident and in charge. Just eleven minutes into the second half, freshman Miguel Ross netted his third goal of the season on an assist from Roberto Silva. The next goal was a gift to West Chester as Goldey-Beacom accidently put it into their own goal, which made the score 4-0. Right before the game was over, Miguel Ross capitalized on a nice pass from David Green, his second assist of the game. Ross headed the ball past the goalie to make the score 5-0. 5-0 was the final score as West Chester dominated the entire game, making them 5-3-2, as Goldey-Beacom fell to 2-9-1.
After the game, coach Michael Benn was asked how he thought the team was progressing on the season. “I think the team is progressing nicely. We still have some very challenging games on our schedule but to this point we have done pretty well. We are certainly better than we were at the beginning of the season.” Then when he was asked about what they needed to improve upon to reach their ultimate goal, he said, “our ultimate goal this year is to win the PSAC championship. First, we have to qualify for the playoffs. We have to continue to improve in our communication and team shape on both sides of the ball.” West Chester defeated Millersville University on Saturday with the score of 2-0. They scored both goals on shots by Connor Malarney, as he capitalized on two fo his four shots.
Ryan Calpin is a second year student majoring in communications with a minor in jounralism. He can be reached at RC784188@wcupa.edu.
Men’s soccer on a 3-game winning streak; improve to 5-1-1 in conference
