Center Valley, PA (September 15, 2007) – The DeSales University men's soccer team dropped its 2007 home opener, 3-1 to visiting Eastern University in a non-conference game on a picture perfect day for soccer on Saturday afternoon.
The loss is the sixth straight for the Bulldogs who fall to 0-6 on the season, while Eastern improves to 3-2 overall. DSU held a 16-12 edge in shots, while the Eagles had a 6-3 advantage in corner kicks. Senior Rusty Riedmiller (Stroudsburg, PA/Stroudsburg) tallied four saves in the loss for the Bulldogs.
The Eagles got on the board first at the 6:47 mark when Brian Raffle's header off a free kick pass from Alex Clark found the back of the net. The score stood at 1-0 into halftime before EU made it 2-0 just 4:43 into the second half when Aaron Tritch took a throw-in from Cliff Gehret, beat two DSU defenders and fired a shot past the Bulldog keeper.
Eastern added some insurance at the 72:04 mark when Taylor VanBrackle was the right man in the right spot as a centering pass was not cleared by a DSU defender and VanBrackle stepped into the loose ball in the box and fired into the right corner to make it a 3-0 game.
DSU did get on the board late as junior Andrew Marshall (Greene, NY/Greene Central) put away a loose ball that had been tipped around in the box as fellow junior Tim Hall (Montclair, VA/Bishop Ireton) slid it past the keeper and Marshall was there to fire it into the open net at he 79:49 mark.
The Bulldogs will return to action on Thursday, September 20th when they travel to Messiah College for another non-conference game beginning at 7:00 pm.
