LISLE, Ill. –
Jordan Davis-Troller (
Jr.-Cottage Grove, Wis.) scored a goal and added an assist but Benedictine University took charge in the second half and defeated the Lakeland University men's soccer team 5-2 Saturday night in Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference play.
A scoreless game for 45 minutes broke open just seconds after halftime, with the Eagles scoring 25 seconds into the second half. Benedictine would score four more goals on its homecoming, three in the final 20 minutes, and the Muskies dropped to 2-7 overall and 1-3 in conference.
The Muskies played the Eagles (5-3-1 overall, 3-1 NACC) to a draw in the first half and even finished with advantages in shots (7-5) and corner kicks (3-1) in the first 45 minutes. Lakeland even had the second half kickoff, but Benedictine countered quickly with a long pass far ahead from Thomas Suchecki to Jacob Kotapka behind the defense, and Kotapka capitalized on his one-on-one chance with Muskies goalkeeper
Matt English (
Sr.-Cheyenne, Wyo.) for a 1-0 lead.
The Eagles scored again in the 56th minute with an unassisted goal by Berto Castillo, and then scored two goals just over three minutes apart, the latter Castillo's second of the match at 74:14 to make it 4-0. The Muskies scored their first goal just over four minutes later, with some nifty one-touch passing.
Ben Taylor (
Sr.-Sheboygan, Wis.),
Porter Gigstead (
Fr.-Sturgeon Bay, Wis.),
Aldo Rangel (
Fr.-Sturgeon Bay, Wis.) and Davis-Troller all had touches maneuvering the ball ahead through the Benedictine defense, and
Westin Hoffman (
Jr.-Appleton, Wis.) finished the play, scoring inside the right post from 15 yards out for his second career goal.
Lakeland added a second goal with less than five minutes left in the match. Davis-Troller took a free kick from 31 yards out straight in front of the goal, and his shot on the ground skidded and got by Eagles goalkeeper Raul Jasso inside the right post to make it 4-2. Benedictine added a final goal 80 seconds later with Jorge Roman's second goal of the match.
The teams finished in a 14-14 tie in shot attempts, and the Eagles held a slight 9-7 lead in shots on goal. English made four saves in goal in his first Lakeland start while Jasso stopped five shots.
Lakeland begins a heavy stretch of home games, with six of its next seven contests at Taylor Field starting with Dominican University visiting Wednesday for a 7 p.m. kickoff.
