News Release

Messiah Beats Etown 1-0 For Championship

Grantham, PA--For the second time this season the Messiah Men's Soccer team defeated the Blue Jays of Elizabethtown College. In the 70th minute senior All-American Kai Kasiguran (Oakwood Village, OH) scored a screamer from 25 yards out that tailed into the upper 90. With the victory the Falcons claim the Commonwealth Conference Championship, their 9th conference championship in the history of the program. In addition to winning the conference championship, Messiah claims the automatic bid into the NCAA Division III championship tournament. The Falcons finish the season 18-2 while Etown suffers their sixth loss of the year to end 14-6.

The game was fairly evenly played with Messiah outshooting Etown by a small margin of 14-11. It was obvious that the Blue Jays were interested in playing aggressive soccer as was evident in their 21 fouls and 5 yellow cards. However, Elizabethown also showed the ability to maintain possession and create legitimate scoring opportunities in the run of play and with set plays.

The Falcons had the better of the play in the first half outshooting the Blue Jays 8-3 and were able to dictate play. Near the end of the half Etown looked better and they were able to pressure Messiah's midfield into making mistakes. The second half was more even with Blue Jays taking more shots 8-6.

With thirty minutes left in the match senior right back Eric Frey (Glen Arm, MD) split two defenders to find Kasiguran in the midfield. Kai turned and pushed the ball into the open space away from his defenders and crushed the ball into the back of the net for his tenth goal of the year.

The Falcons were able to knock the ball around soon after the goal, but Etown started pressing hard for the tying goal in the last ten minutes as they sent players forward. In the end Messiah claimed their 14th shutout of the season and their 19th appearance in the NCAA tournament.

Jared Clugston (Red Hill, PA) was in goal for Messiah and recorded 5 saves while Jeff Mullen had 5 saves on the day for the Blue Jays. Messiah had 6 corner kicks while Etown was awarded 3.

The NCAA Division III The NCAA Division III Men�s Soccer Championship selections bracket will be announced via Web cast on Monday November 5 at 11:00 a.m. eastern time. The bracket will also be posted on and www.ncaasports.com and www.ncaa.org immediately following the webcast.

Please take the following steps to access the Web cast:
1. Go to www.ncaasports.com
2. Click on the link designated for Division III Men�s Soccer Selection Show
3. Register as a new user in order to view the Web cast
*You can register for the Web site at any time; If you pre-register, you will be asked to log in upon entering the site on Monday

Submitted 2007-11-03 21:08:48 by Messiah College Sports Information Department

Comments: