Sept. 10, 2016
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Sept. 9, 2016
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Penn State men's soccer team fell in its first match at Jeffrey Field in the 2016 campaign in a 3-1 loss to Saint Francis Friday, Sept. 9.
A lot of credit to Saint Francis, really well played by so many of their players," stated Bob Warming. "So much fight, great competition, and when they wanted they expanded quickly. All the things you want to see in a good team they really did it tonight. On our side of the ball, when your best players don't complete any passes, some of our best players completed three or four passes in the night, you're not going to have a good night. I give a lot of credit to Saint Francis great job by them. The left-centerback, there's a reason he's an all-American, he did a great job at organizing the back line the whole time."
Freshman Christian Sload (Reading, Pa.) was the bright spot in the Nittany Lion (2-2-1) offense scoring his first collegiate goal in his first appearance donning the Blue and White. Penn State had three shots on goal on the evening including one from senior Connor Maloney (Harrisburg, Pa.) and junior Aymar Sigue (St. Alberta, Alberta, Canada). Freshman Arie Ammann (Round Hill, Va.) made three saves in goal for the Blue and White and gave up three goals.
Troye Kiernan paced SFU (3-2-0) scoring his first two goals of the season, one in the first half and one in the second, while Nicco Mastrangelo tallied one goal for the Red Flash. Saint Francis had 14 shots in the match with six on goal. Goalkeeper Marcus Rojas made two saves for SFU and allowed one goal.
The Red Flash got out to the early lead over the Nittany Lions in the 22nd-minute of the match when Pedro Neto got the ball to the center of the field to Kiernan. Kiernan made the turn to his right and shot the ball into the lower left corner of the goal from 20-yards, allowing SFU to take a 1-0 lead over the Blue and White.
Saint Francis extended its lead to 2-0 when Stefan Sjekloca placed a corner kick six-yards out for Mastrangelo, who headed the ball into the back of the net with seven minutes remaining in the opening half of action.
Penn State found back-to-back shots inside the box late in the first half but a save and a high shot denied the Nittany Lions from scoring a goal.
Heading into the locker room at the half, Penn State trailed 2-0 and was outshot 7-2 in the opening half of action by the Red Flash.
After 37 minutes of play in the second half, the Red Flash added a third goal to its tally when Kiernan dribbled the ball into the box and placed it into the bottom left corner with two Penn State players on him to give SFU the 3-0 lead.
Penn State will play in the Fourth Annual Mack Brady Game Tuesday, Sept. 13 when Ohio State comes to town for the 2016 Big Ten Conference opener. The match is slated to start at 7 p.m. at Jeffrey Field.