IMMACULATA, Pa.- For just the first time since the end of the 2009 season, the Immaculata University men's soccer will play for a Conference Tournament Championship game after advancing past Marymount in the Atlantic East semifinals on Tuesday evening by a 5-4 margin in penalty kicks. While the contest officially ends in a 1-1 draw, Immaculata will advance to the Championship match by virtue of a win in the Penalty Kick shootout at the conclusion of overtime.
Despite a handful of scoring opportunities in the first half of play, neither side was able to break through thanks to strong defensive efforts from each team.
With the game appearing as if it was destined to go scoreless through regulation, Marymount scored the first goal of the contest in the 79
th minute to claim an late 1-0 lead. Immaculata answered back quickly with a goal of its own just minutes later in the 83
rd minute when
Zachary Malcolm got on the end of a beautiful corner kick from
Alex Potter to even the score at 1-1.
In the final minutes of regulation, each team continued to threaten, however, a number of standout defensive plays from each side including an exceptional play from
Ricky Molz in the closing minutes of regulation sent the contest to overtime locked at 1-1.
In the extra session, Immaculata and Marymount continued to battle trading shots through the first overtime before entering the second overtime where neither team was credited with a shot. Throughout these extra 10 minute sessions, Immaculata continued to threaten, however, the Marymount defense led by Ronald Clark proved to be up to the task of slowing down the Mighty Mac offense, thus, officially ending the contest in a 1-1 draw and forcing penalty kicks to determine who would advance to the Championship game on Saturday.
In penalty kicks, each side scored their first four attempts as
Josh Fonder, Potter,
John Bohrer, and
Nick Boule all converted their attempts while Leonardo Luna, Justin Meza, Jesus Rios, and the goalkeeper Clark all buried their attempts to keep the shootout close. In the fifth spot, Malcolm saw his attempt saved by a diving Clark, thus, giving Marymount the chance to win with the next kick. However,
Mikey Kalpokas proved to be up to the task as the junior goalie made a diving stop of his own, which sent the shootout to another round still even at 4-4.In what would prove to be the final round,
Alex D'Angelo buried his attempt while the final Marymount attempt rang off the far post to give Immaculata the PK victory and send the Macs and their faithful into a frenzy.
In between the pipes, Kalpokas was sharp throughout the evening as he made four big saves throughout his 110 minutes of action in addition to a clutch stop in PKs to lift Immaculata to the victory. His counterpart, Ronald Clark was also outstanding in goal as he made four saves of his own in addition to converting a PK goal in the shootout and making an impressive stop in the shootout as his season came to a close.
As a team, Immaculata ended the contest with a narrow 15-13 edge in shots while shots on goal were even at 5-5. Marymount did manage to end the contest with a slim 10-9 edge in corner kicks.
Immaculata will now turn its attention to the Atlantic East Championship game, which will be played on Saturday at top-seed Cabrini. A time for that contest has yet to be announced.
