Garden City, N.Y. – Joseph Sanchez scored a pair of goals in the second half to lead seventh-ranked and top-seeded Adelphi University to a 2-1 come-from-behind victory over the third-seeded Le Moyne College men's soccer team in the Northeast-10 Conference Championship game on Sunday afternoon at Motamed Field.
Le Moyne, which dips to 14-4-2 on the season, now awaits a berth into the NCAA Championships. The 38-team field, which includes six teams from the East Region, will be announced on NCAA.com on Monday at 6:30 p.m. The Dolphins were ranked fourth in last week's East Region rankings.
In the scoreless first half, the Panthers registered an 8-5 advantage in shots. Junior goalkeeper
Ben Beaury (Cohoes, N.Y./LaSalle Institute) was required to make three saves for the Dolphins, while Spenser Powell made one save for Adelphi.
Le Moyne opened the game's scoring just 73 seconds into the second half. Redshirt junior
Marcello Palucci (Miami, Fla./Gulliver Prep/Florida International) played a through ball up the middle of the field to freshman midfielder
Pablo Fernandez (Aviles, Spain/Real Oviedo), who collected the ball at the top of the penalty box and slipped a shot inside the right post for his third goal of the season.
Adelphi, which ended Le Moyne's conference championship pursuit for the fourth straight year, evened the score at one apiece just under 10 minutes later. Following passes by Federico De Oliveira and Florent Girardin, Sanchez knocked the ball into the net from just in front of the goal mouth.
A little over eight minutes later, the Panthers scored the game-winning goal. After accepting a pass from James Thristino, Sanchez fired a shot from the right endline underneath the crossbar at the 64:13 mark for his third goal of the year.
The Dolphins put four shots on goal over the final 25 minutes, while sailing another rocket over the crossbar, but could not score the equalizer.
Beaury finished the game with four saves in suffering just his third loss of the season between the pipes. Powell tallied five saves to earn his 16th victory of the year. The Panthers posted a 14-13 edge in shots, while taking five of the game's eight corner kicks.
