Scranton Drops a Nail-Biter to Allegheny

October 22, 2023

By: Ross Turetsky, Penn State Scranton Athletics

On a chilly autumn Sunday Funday on the pitch in the electric city, the Penn State Scranton Lions men's soccer squad lost by the slimmest of margins, 1-0, to their conference rival Penn State Greater Allegheny in their final game at home this season. With the defeat, Scranton sees their overall record fall to 1-8-2 and in their all-important league play schedule they are now 1-3-2 with just a pair of road conference showdowns at Penn State Brandywine and Penn State New Kensington this week to conclude their 2023 regular season campaign. Also of note, the hometown Lions honored their lone senior Matheus Kaminski during their annual Senior Day festivities for all his hard work on and off the field during his impressive collegiate career.

After both ball clubs were held scoreless in the first half of play, the road warrior Lions from Allegheny finally broke the deadlock 13-minutes into the second half, when Max Whitson lit the lamp, unassisted, to give his team a 1-0 advantage at the 58:00 mark, a lead his squad would not relinquish when the game's final buzzer sounded.

On the offensive side of the ball, Scranton was led by their stalwart freshman Owen Sheils who had a team-high four shots on goal, to go along with junior Raphael Carvalho's pair of shots he fired on net to account for their club's six shots on goal in the matinee.

For the goaltending side of things, Scranton was led by their stellar freshman goalkeeper Ethan Lovelace who stopped a near perfect eight out of the nine shots on goal he faced on the day while going the distance between the pipes. Meanwhile, Allegheny's net minder Chris Klinger was a brick wall in goal all match long, as he earned a complete game shutout victory stopping all six shots he faced from Scranton in the tightly played contest.

Now first-year head coach Robert Denney and his 1-8-2 Penn State Scranton men's soccer team will look to bounce back and capture a big win when they next go on the road to take on conference foe Penn State Brandywine this upcoming Tuesday afternoon, with kick-off scheduled for a 3pm start time.