Box Score ROCHESTER, N.Y. (Oct. 9, 2015) - Junior forward
Kyle Poetzsch (Hicksville, N.Y.) scored his first hat trick in a Lions uniform and the Molloy College men's soccer team sweated out a final five furious minutes to pick up a 3-2 victory at Roberts Wesleyan on Friday in Rochester, N.Y.
The home side opened the game's shot account with two quick attempts towards the goal, but Molloy (7-3, 2-2 ECC) dodged the strikes. Junior midfielder Malcolm Shaw (Pickering, Ontario, Canada) had his effort just 24 seconds into the contest blocked away, and a header by Michael McGinnis (Elmira, N.Y.) off of a corner kick floated high over the crossbar to keep Roberts Wesleyan (5-4-2, 2-2-1 ECC) off of the scoreboard. Poetzsch would get involved with the scoring in the eighth minute to put the maroon and white ahead for good in the contest. But the scoring had just begun on a brisk October evening in Rochester, as the junior forward continued to hound sophomore goalie John Ciavaglia (Pittsford, N.Y.) with a shot in the 12th minute that was deflected wide for a corner. Off the beautiful set piece from fellow junior
Mosiah Whyte (Coram, N.Y.), Poetzsch banged home his second goal of the game and seventh marker of the season to put Molloy ahead by a 2-nil margin. That would conclude the scoring in the first half, but not for a lack of chances on the side of the visitors. Whyte, red-shirt senior
Lester Franco (Bay Shore, N.Y.) and fellow upperclassman
Lucas Munoz (Hicksville, N.Y.) all attempted shots that were either high, wide or stopped by Ciavaglia. Meanwhile, senior midfielder Jake Zito (East Rochester, N.Y.) directed a shot goalward that was saved by sophomore netminder
Stephen Tappeto (Merrick, N.Y.) at the 30-minute mark of the game.
Twenty seconds into the final frame of regulation, Whyte nearly converted for his ninth goal of the year. A Ciavaglia save, though, would prove to be huge for the Redhawks to get back into the game as sophomore forward Logan Wood (Hornell, N.Y.) beat Tappeto with an attempt on goal just seven minutes later. The scoring would continue in the 63rd minute of action as Poetzsch was on the receiving end of a feed from Munoz to net his third goal of the contest and increase Molloy's lead back to two goals at 3-1. Tappeto made two saves on McGinnis and Daniel Maxwell (Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada) in the 77th minute to keep the scoreline the same, while Whyte and
Lucio Sorto (Baldwin, N.Y.) could not beat Ciavaglia to up Molloy's lead any further with six minutes to play. In the 86th minute of action, Shaw finally broke through to cut the Lions' advantage to one goal and set the stage for a dramatic and frenetic final few minutes of action.
Roberts Wesleyan took five shots in the last four minutes and 48 seconds of play in Rochester, with a first attempt by Zito saved by Tappeto. Then in the 89th minute, Wood pushed a shot wide while Shaw and Maxwell both had attempts stoned by the sophomore goalie. Lastly, in the dying seconds of the contest, Wood launched one last effort towards the Molloy goal in a hope to level the score. Alas, the shot by the sophomore forward clanged off the post to ensure a 3-2 victory for the maroon and white.
The final statistics exemplified the action-packed nature of the contest with Roberts Wesleyan outshooting Molloy by a 16-14 margin. Both teams were awarded four corner kicks and each side directed nine attempts on target in the contest. Tappeto eked out a victory in the saves category, stopping seven shots to Ciavaglia's six saves. Lastly, Whyte took a match-high six shots for Molloy while Poetzsch had all four of his shots go on goal in the victorious effort.
Head Coach
Danny Longo and the Molloy College men's soccer team will face Daemen College on Sunday (Oct. 11) in Amherst, N.Y. with a 1 p.m. kickoff time.
