Box Score Box Score
ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. – A 1-0 halftime lead did not hold up against Elizabethtown as the Susquehanna men's soccer team suffered a 3-1 road loss to the Blue Jays on Wednesday night.
The Crusaders (4-3-1) failed to win back-to-back games against Elizabethtown (2-4-2) after defeating the Blue Jays last year for the first time in program history.
SU and Elizabethtown went shot for shot, finishing with 17 apiece. The Blue Jays, however, were able to put eight of those shots on goal while the Crusaders had just four on net. Susquehanna did take 11 corners to Elizabethtown's four and SU goalie Matt Salsman (Selinsgrove, Pa./Selinsgrove Area) finished with five saves on the night.
Andrew Murphy (Natick, Mass./Natick) led the team with six shots while also adding an assist. Nick Fecci (Point Pleasant, N.J./Point Pleasant) took only two shots but one of those came in the form of a first-half goal.
With just over 10 minutes to play in the first half, the game seemed destined to head into halftime without a goal until Fecci netted his third goal of the season off an assist from Murphy to put the squad up 1-0.
The Blue Jays fired off three shots over the final four minutes of that opening half in an effort to tie the game, but Salsman came up with two critical saves and a third shot went wide to keep it 1-0 at the midway point.
For a while it looked as if one goal might be all the Crusaders would need but in the 63rd minute, Elizabethtown's Brent Batory directed a cross from David Boretti into the lower left corner of the net and past Salsman to knot the game at one.
The teams traded shots for the next 18 minutes before Elizabethtown struck again, this time when Boretti fired a ball right into the middle of the net, beyond the reach of Salsman, to make it a 2-1 Blue Jays lead with eight minutes to play.
Elizabethtown was able to keep its offensive momentum going as the team netted its second goal of the half and third of the game with just over four minutes remaining to effectively put the game out of reach.
SU returns home on Saturday to host Moravian at 3:30 p.m. in the teams' Landmark Conference opener.
