UNIVERSITY CENTER - Playing at home for the first time in 12 days, the #20-ranked Saginaw Valley State University men's soccer team gave the home fans a good show in posting a 5-3 victory over the University of Findlay Oilers on Friday afternoon (10/24).
The victory moves SVSU to 12-1-2 overall on the season and 9-1-2 in the GLIAC. The nine league victories ties the program record, set by the 2012 squad. The 12 wins is tied for second-most in program history, only behind the same 2012 team that had 18 in its national runner-up finish. Findlay fell to 4-11-0 overall and 3-9-0 in conference play with the defeat.
It's the fourth time in the past five games the Cards have notched at least four goals and the fifth time all season.
The Cardinals jumped out to a 1-0 lead when senior Craig Neal scored his first goal of the afternoon at the 17:53 mark. Neal received a pass from Michael Winters and was able to put one past the Findlay goalkeeper. Aleksandar Isaevski received an assist on the goal as well.
Neal returned the favor when he was able to get a pass across to Winters, who scored at the 23:18 mark to push the Cardinal lead to 2-0. It was the freshman's third goal of the season.
Findlay would answer back and cut into the SVSU lead at the 28:43 marker when Oiler forward Mark Sleasman received a long pass from Jared Lyon and was able to beat Alexandre Bouillennec to make the score 2-1.
SVSU added another one right before the half at the 42:03 mark when Matthew Lang used a pass from Griffin Parks to score his third goal of the year. The Cardinals would take a 3-1 lead into the halftime break.
The teams traded a pair of goals in the second half, as the same trio that accounted for the first goal would strike again at the 51:25 mark when Neal notched his team-high seventh goal of the season. Vasold and Winters assisted on the score once more.
The Oilers cut the lead down to two again at the 76:25 mark when Sleasman scored his second goal of the contest.
Saginaw Valley would answer back only four minutes later when Jordan Kalk used a pass from Tyler Channell to score his sixth goal of the season and extend the Cardinal lead out to 5-2 with only nine minutes remaining. Findlay would add a goal with one second on the clock to make the final score 5-3.
Neal finished the game with two goals and one assist. Winters added one goal and two assists and Vasold had two assists for the victorious Cardinals.
"We have scored nine goals in our last two games which is great but we still know that there are things we need to improve on, especially going into Sunday," said SVSU Head Coach Cale Wassermann. "Findlay is a tough team and never gave up. I give them credit for working and scoring the two late goals. At the end of the day, we got the points we needed and are now focused on finishing the weekend with another performance on Sunday."
The win sets up a showdown with Tiffin University on Sunday afternoon. The two teams are currently first and second atop the GLIAC standings. SVSU is ranked #1 in the Midwest Region while Tiffin is #4. The contest is set to begin at noon at SVSU's Braddock Field.
The Dragons lost against Northwood University today, as the Timberwolves are ranked third in the league and fifth in the region. Saginaw Valley finishes its 2014 season against the T-Wolves on Halloween, so the set of matches will have huge implications on what school will host the 2014 GLIAC Men's Soccer Tournament.
Saginaw Valley won the earlier matchup against Tiffin on September 26th in a double-overtime thriller that saw the Cardinals tie the game with just two seconds remaining and win it in double-overtime.
