Center Valley, PA (October 21, 2006) – The defending Freedom Conference champions in men’s soccer will be able to defend its 2005 title after the DeSales University men’s soccer clinched itself a playoff berth on Saturday afternoon with a hard-fought 2-1 win over Drew University in Freedom Conference action.

 

        The Bulldogs (9-4-2, 4-2 Freedom) needed just one win in its final two regular season games to clinch a playoff spot and got that win this afternoon over the Rangers (7-6-1, 4-2 Freedom).  DSU has one more conference game remaining next Saturday vs. Lycoming College and can clinch the #3 seed with either a win next Saturday or a Drew loss in its final regular season game next week (vs. Wilkes).

 

        DSU never trailed in the game as they opened up a 1-0 lead at 21:59 on sophomore German Reyes’ (Beach Lake, PA/Honesdale) seventh goal of the season.  Fellow sophomore Chris Ravita (Lebanon, NJ/North Hunterdon) sent a gorgeous pass thru the entire Ranger defense and hit a streaking Reyes who had a one-on-one with the Ranger keeper and beat him to the right side for the first goal of the game.

 

        The score stood into halftime and thru much of the second half before Drew tied the game at 71:27.  Anthony Pisani took advantage of a loose ball in the box that was not cleared quite enough by the DSU defense.  He sent a low slow rolling shot that just squeezed past the Bulldogs sweeper and found a home in the lower right corner of the net past a diving DSU keeper.

 

        The game went back and forth over the next few minutes before the Bulldogs regained control on the scoreboard.  Senior Randy Strum (North Cape May, NJ/Lower Cape May) took control of a long pass at the top of the scoring box.  He flicked a pass to Reyes who turned and fired a centering pass past a charging keeper to freshman Marc Leonard (Bondville, VT/Burr and Burton Academy) who had beaten his mark and knocked the pass into a wide open net for the eventual game-winner.

 

        The Rangers held a 15-7 edge in shots and a 5-3 edge in corner kicks.  Only four of the Drew shots were on goal, while DSU had six shots on goal.  Junior Rusty Riedmiller (Stroudsburg, PA/Stroudsburg) made three saves for the Bulldogs, while his counterpart David Brigandi stopped four shots in the loss.