Scranton Falls at Brandywine

By: Ross Turetsky, Penn State Scranton Athletics

On Tuesday afternoon on the pitch, the visiting Penn State Scranton Lions men's soccer squad dropped their penultimate regular season contest with a 7-0 shutout defeat to their conference foe Penn State Brandywine. With the defeat, Scranton sees their overall record move to 1-9-2 and in their all-important league play schedule they are now 1-4-2 with just one game left in their 2023 campaign.

The hometown Lions from Brandywine got off to a fast 3-0 advantage in the first half of play before adding four more insurance goals in the second half to cruise to their dominant 7-0 victory over Scranton. To kick-off their scoring party in the first half, Brandywine's Raymond Kelly, assisted by Kyle Reuter, lit the lamp first just 4:26 into the match to give his club the early 1-0 lead. Then about 26-minutes later, Chris Manful found the back of the net unassisted to increase his squad's advantage to 2-0 at the 30:21 mark. For Brandywine's third and final goal of the first half, Mikey Dunham, assisted by Kelly, stretched his team's lead to 3-0 at the 37:17 mark, a sizeable advantage they would enjoy heading into the locker room during the break in the action.

In the second half of play, Brandywine continued their scoring prowess, as Omar Simpson, assisted by Reuter, got one between the pipes to make it 4-0 at 67:24. Simpson would score his second goal of the matinee just four minutes later at the 71:43 mark, this one assisted by Kelly, to increase his team's advantage to 5-0. Six minutes later Brandywine lit the lamp once again, this time off the foot of Peter Glass, assisted by Dunham, to make it a 6-0 ball game at 77:25. For the Lions seventh and final goal of the contest, Dunham struck gold for the second time of the match, this one assisted by Kelly, to make it 7-0 at the 84:09 mark, a dominant advantage they would enjoy when the game's final buzzer sounded.

For Scranton's lone shot on goal in the showdown, junior Raphael Carvalho got one on net to provide a scoring chance for his club.

On the goaltending side of things, stand-out freshman goalkeeper Ethan Lovelace stopped a whopping 18 out of the 25 shots on goal that came his way while playing all 90-minutes in net. Meanwhile, Brandywine's net-minder Will Manarpaac went the distance to earn the complete game shutout victory between the pipes.

Now first-year head coach Robert Denney and his 1-9-2 Penn State Scranton Lions men's soccer squad will look to snap their mini two game losing streak and try to end their year on a high note with a hard earned win in their regular season finale on the road at conference rival Penn State New Kensington this upcoming Saturday afternoon, with kick-off starting at 2pm on the pitch.