October 26, 2006 Issue                                       

Click Here

©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

CHC men and women both pepper Patriots
by TOM UTESCHER

Chestnut Hill College’s Maureen Dugan. For more archived photos visit www.chlocalphotos.com. (Photo by Jimmy J. Pack Jr.)

Taking a break from North Eastern Athletic Conference competition last Saturday, Chestnut Hill College’s soccer teams boosted both their overall records and their individual statistics on an excursion to Valley Forge Christian College. The CHC women opened the afternoon doubleheader with a 5-1 win, and the men’s squad followed up with a 6-0 victory over the Patriots.

The Griffin men saw their season record rise to 10-3-2 while their NEAC mark stayed at 6-2-2, and the women remained 6-4-1 in the conference and climbed to 9-6-2 overall. Following the double defeat, the Valley Forge women’s team was 4-12, and its male counterpart was 2-12.

From the start of the women’s game the visiting Griffins controlled the play much of the time, and in the middle of the period Morgan Nichols rang up back-to-back goals in a span of five minutes, giving the locals all the scoring they would need to prevail. Although it was a near-perfect October afternoon, portions of the field were very slippery underfoot, still wet from a deluge the previous Tuesday.

With ten minutes left in the opening period, a deflected Chestnut Hill shot resulted in a loose ball in the middle of the box. Maureen Dugan pounced on it, giving the Griffins a 3-0 lead that would stand until halftime.

Aside from one serious rush mounted by the host Patriots, CHC remained on offense as the second period progressed. About 17 minutes into the half Nichols added an assist to her two goals, setting up a scoring run up the middle by Jackie Nevius.

With 22 minutes left to play, Nichols completed a hat trick, as Meghan Smith passed the ball across the box from right to left and Nichols booted it back across into the far side of the cage. That would be the Griffins’ last goal of the day, although Amanda Favreau came close to adding a sixth marker, receiving a corner kick and flicking a shot up into the right end of the crossbar. With just 1:45 on the clock, Valley Forge’s Melissa Boarman scored to break up the shutout for CHC keeper Krista Deflaviis (four saves).

In the men’s contest, Griffins reserve goalie Adley Amzovski played the whole way, and a lot of Chestnut Hill’s younger field players also saw more action than usual. Outshooting the Patriots 24-5 in the game, the Griffins took the initiative from the outset, but in the first half they were not quite able to get into position to finish many of their scoring chances. Their lone goal in the period came with 15 minutes remaining, when Mike Devine’s throw-in from the right sideline was headed into the Patriots’ goal by Raun Parker.

A plucky effort by Valley Forge goaltender John Shanck (14 saves) kept the contest from turning into a total rout, and early in the second half he turned away two shots by the visitors’ Andrew Thorne and then tipped a ball fired by Brandan Saylor up over the crossbar. The marker that added the first bit of padding to CHC’s slim lead was actually an own-goal by Valley Forge, as Carlos Navarrete-Jiminez’s corner kick from the right was deflected into the net by a Patriot defender.

That happened with a little under 25 minutes left to play, and four minutes later the Griffins went up 3-0 when a Devine throw-in led to another successful header, this time by Matt Guyon. As the clock dropped below 17 minutes, Chestnut Hill’s Thorne deposited his 19th goal of the season, hitting a close-range shot that was blocked by Shanck, and then popping in the rebound.

Devine then earned his third throw-in assist of the game, connecting with the cranium of Alexander Waters for the fifth CHC goal. Number six went on the board with just 23 seconds remaining, as David Hohneker assisted on a strike by Yannick Wallace.