Penn State Scranton Men’s Soccer Falls Just Short to Greater Allegheny

By: Ross Turetsky, Penn State Scranton Athletics

On another beautiful autumn day on the Dunmore campus, Penn State Scranton's men's soccer team lost in a thrilling nail biter 2-1 to conference foe Penn State Greater Allegheny. With the defeat Scranton falls to an overall 0-5 record and 0-3 in the all-important conference play.

All the scoring in the contest came in the first half, as Greater Allegheny jumped out to an early 1-0 advantage at the 7:06 mark when TJ Knutson scored an unassisted goal. However, the Lions of Scranton would show lots of resiliency and come roaring back to tie up the game just a few minutes later at 1-1 at 10:45, when senior Kyle Davies scored a stellar goal assisted from fellow senior captain Michael Foder. Allegheny would bounce right back and right before halftime, with just over two minutes to play before the buzzer at the 42:57 mark, score what would be the game winning goal, as Gideon Jones scored, assisted by Abdi Abdalla, to take the 2-1 lead their squad refused to relinquish. In the second half both teams played stingy defense and had a few close scoring chances, but held each other scoreless for the final 45-minutes of action.

Scranton's sophomore starting goal keeper Antonio Pugliese was stalwart in net, as he played all 90-minutes in the contest and stopped seven of the nine shots on goal that Greater Allegheny fired on him. Meanwhile, Allegheny's starting goal keeper, Chris Klinger, picked up the victory between the pipes, as he stopped six of the seven shots on goal from Scranton while playing all 90-minutes in the match.

Now head coach Joe Baltrusaitis and his Scranton ball club will look to capture their first win of the soccer season this Wednesday, September 29th at 4 pm, when they travel on the road to play nearby conference rival Penn State Wilkes-Barre.