Box Score STEUBENVILLE – The Franciscan men's soccer team remained perfect in the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference with a dramatic 3-2 win over La Roche on their home field, Wednesday afternoon.
The win not only improved the Barons to 8-3-1 on the season and 4-0 in the AMCC, but it snapped a seven-game losing streak to the Red Hawks and gave FUS its first win over La Roche since current head coach Christian Bobak and a pair of his assistants, Zeph Swope and William Herrmann, were on the field as players in 2008.
After a highly contested back and forth battle in the first 30 minutes of the game, sophomore Christopher Lann scored his first collegiate goal in the 32nd minute, just two minutes after checking into the game. Junior captain Dominic Vander Woude sent a perfect pass up the middle to Lann who shot it down the center of the net and evaded the Red Hawk keeper. The Barons carried the 1-0 win into half despite another shot by Lann.
The Red Hawks tied the game for the first time just 3:48 into the second half. Justin Horn got the ball about 18 yards out from the net and Franciscan goalie, junior Thomas Dosedel, was drawn out from the line and Horn lofted into the top of the net, right out of the reach of Dosedel.
The intensity did not let up as the game remained tied 1-1 over the next 23:59 minutes of action. Both teams had scoring opportunities over that time as Franciscan was awarded three corner kicks and took two shots and La Roche had a pair of shots. Tom Spagnola's shot was blocked before Elliot Dick narrowly missed giving the Red Hawks their first lead as he shot ricocheted off the far post.
Senior Joe Francis broke the 1-1 tie with his fourth goal in as many games as he collected the ball off a quick pass from senior captain Joseph Duran and shot it over the Red Hawk keeper while battling off a defender to give the Barons a 2-1 lead.
The lead would be shortly lived; however, as Dick got a goal of his own off a pass from Spagnola as the Red Hawks were able to keep the pressure on the Baron defense and tie game at 2-2 in the 78th minute.
Franciscan returned the favor with pressure on the Red Hawk defense and maintained possession well over the next seven minutes. After a corner kick from Duran, the Barons were able to keep the ball in the box and junior Cuyler Ledyard got his foot on the ball and flicked it to a patient junior Leo Herrmann who shot it over the goalie to give the Barons a 3-2 lead and his fourth game-winning goal of the year.
The Red Hawks had one final attempt on net but Dick's header went wide right and Dosedel sent the goal kick deep into the Red Hawk half of the field and allowed time to expire.
Franciscan out-shot the Red Hawks 13-9 while holding a 5-2 advantage in corner kicks.
Dosedel needed just two saves in his eighth win while his counterpart, Austin Gorman, suffered the loss with six stops.
Franciscan hits the road on Saturday to take on Pitt.-Bradford for a 3:15 AMCC contest.
