Scranton Ties Conference Rival

By: Ross Turetsky, Penn State Scranton Athletics

On a Tuesday matinee on the pitch, the hometown Penn State Scranton Lions men's soccer squad completed a hard fought 2-2 draw with their conference foe Penn State York. With the tie, the Lions from Scranton snapped a mini two game losing streak and see their overall record move to 1-7-2 and in the all-important league play schedule they are 1-2-2 with only a trio of games remaining in their regular season campaign.

In the first half of play, the road warriors from York got on the scoreboard first just 5:16 into the contest when George Keene lit the lamp, unassisted, to give his squad the early 1-0 advantage they would enjoy heading into the halftime locker room. In the second half, the Scranton Lions would come roaring right back when stand-out freshman Owen Sheils hit the unassisted equalizer at 55:02 to knot things all up at 1-1. Then just 47-seconds later Scranton would take their first lead of the match when fellow freshman Ryan Livolsi, assisted by Joseph Clinton, found the back of the net to give his club a 2-1 lead at the 55:49 mark.  However, with just over two minutes left in regulation and a victory for Scranton seemed all but certain, Penn State York came storming back when Sean Brown, unassisted, broke some hearts and tied things up at 2-2 at 87:57. This late tying score would be the last goal of the contest when the game's final buzzer sounded just moments later.

On the goaltending side of things, Scranton's stalwart freshman goalkeeper Ethan Lovelace was stellar between the pipes once again, as he stopped seven out of the nine shots on goal he faced while playing the entire 90-minutes in net. Meanwhile, York's goaltender Owen Bricker was a brick wall in goal as well, as he stopped a whopping 12 out of the 14 shots on goal Scranton fired his way while going the distance in his gritty complete game performance.

Now first-year head coach Robert Denney and his 1-7-2 Penn State Scranton men's soccer team will try to make it a Funday Sunday when they host another conference rival in Penn State Greater Allegheny in their home season finale on the pitch with kick-off scheduled for a 12 noon start time.