Golden Tornadoes Defeat Lions, 3-0

By Noelle Miloszewski

Green Valley Park, Rochester, PA - On Monday, Sept. 21, the Penn State Beaver Nittany Lions soccer team hosted and lost to the Geneva College Golden Tornadoes (Beaver Falls, PA), 3-0.

In the first half, the Golden Tornadoes barraged Beaver keeper Kevin Conley (Beaver High School, Beaver, PA) with a flurry of shots, but Conley kept the Geneva attack at bay with some acrobatic saves. In the 27th minute, sophomore Todd Long (Kane High School, Kane, PA) missed a direct kick with his outside foot.

Geneva scored just minutes later on the second of two consecutive corner kick attempts when Conley could not catch up with a header. Geneva continued to provide a constant offensive attack. However, with time almost expired in the first half, Long crossed the ball to teammate CJ Bowers (West Allegheny High School, Imperial, PA) who just missed a goal as his header attempt clanged off the crossbar and Geneva dodged another solid Lion scoring opportunity.

The second half mimicked the first. Geneva continued to keep Conley and the Beaver defense busy, but could not tally another marker early in the half.

Twenty-five minutes into the second half, the game was delayed for nearly 30 minutes when a rescue helicopter was forced to land on an adjacent field because of a nearby accident. Following the delay, Beaver seemed a bit sluggish and Geneva scored on two more set pieces that snuck past Conley. Beaver made one last effort to score in the game's final seconds, but transer Ayodeji Odulaja (Penn State Greater Allegheny, Williamstown, NJ) volleyed a ball just over the goal from 10 yards out. 

For the game, the Golden Tornadoes out shot the Lions 31-7. Despite the loss, the Lions are at the top of the PSUAC at 5-0 and remain above .500 on the season at 5-4 overall. 

At 2 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 26, Beaver will host Penn State York in a PSUAC match-up.