Scranton Soccer Drops One to Word of Life 

By: Ross Turetsky, Penn State Scranton Athletics 

On a Saturday afternoon road matinee on the pitch, the Penn State Scranton Lions men's soccer squad lost 6-0 to Word of Life in a non-conference showdown. With this defeat, Scranton sees their overall record fall to 1-5 and in the all-important league play schedule they are now all knotted at 1-1 on the season.  

The hometown Word of Life Huskies jumped out to a robust 5-0 lead at the end of the first half of play, before netting a key insurance goal in the game's final 45-minutes to clinch their 6-0 shutout victory over the Lions from Scranton.  

Just 4:35 into the contest Word of Life kicked-off the scoring, as Alexi Marshall, assisted by Joseph Mathews, found the back of the net to give his squad an early 1-0 advantage. Then about 12-minutes later, at the 16:49 mark, Mathews scored the first of his trio of goals on the day, this one assisted by David Singer, to increase his team's lead to 2-0. Then at 30:41 Mathews scored his second goal, this time unassisted, to stretch his club's lead to 3-0 over the Lions. Then about nine minutes later, Calem Mason hammered one in unassisted at 39:57 to up his team's advantage to 4-0. Then four minutes later at 43:25, the Huskies scored their fifth and final goal of the opening half when Isaac Hilsher, assisted by Elijah Haynes, lit the lamp to give his team a whopping 5-0 lead they would enjoy at the break in the action. Word of Life's insurance goal came at the 70:15 mark in the second half of play when Mathews completed his scoring hat trick, this time assisted by teammate Joel Castro, to give his squad the dominant 6-0 advantage they would enjoy when the game clock hit all zeroes.  

Scranton's two shots on goal they recorded on offense came off the feet of their dynamic duo in junior Raphael Carvalho and freshman Will Nagy. 

On the goaltending side of things, Scranton's stand-out freshman goalie Ethan Lovelace stopped 10 out of the 16 shots on goal he faced in the matchup while playing all 90-minutes between the pipes. Meanwhile for the Word of Life Huskies, Seth Randall went the distance in net and stopped both shots on goal he faced while earning his stalwart shutout victory.  

Now first-year head coach Robert Denney and his 1-5 Penn State Scranton Lions soccer squad will look to bounce back with a win and snap their mini three game losing streak when they travel on the road to face local conference rival Penn State Hazleton this upcoming Wednesday night with a prime time kick-off at 7pm.