The Suffolk University Men’s Soccer team captured the 2010 Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Championship on Saturday afternoon topping the Albertus Magnus Falcons, 2-1 in New Haven, Connecticut. With the victory the Rams will now make an appearance in the NCAA Division-III Men’s Soccer Tournament that will begin on November 11.
Suffolk entered the tournament with the number four seed after finishing the GNAC season with a 5-3-1 record in conference play. Albertus (6-2-1 GNAC) was the number two seed going into the finals, as their season record falls to 15-5-1.
The Rams scored both of their goals within five minutes of each other in the first half and freshman Matt Esposito (Wallingford, Conn.) continued his strong play stopping eight of nine shots for Suffolk as they move to an 11-7-1 record on the season.
Suffolk got on the board first in the game’s twentieth minute as sophomore Ben Rollins (Lee, N.H.) struck for his eighth goal of the season. Rollins took advantage of an Albertus defensive misplay at 20:30, scoring into an open net via a pass from sophomore David Best (Westminster, Mass.) to make it 1-0. Just over four minutes later, Suffolk found the goal once again as junior Nick Cugine (Ridgefield, Conn.) finished a gorgeous feed from senior Luis Flores (Madrid, Spain), and the Rams took a 2-0 lead.
Albertus would have plenty of chances in the first half outshooting the Rams, 16-4 in the period but Esposito kept the Rams afloat holding off all Falcons scoring chances and was aided with a little luck. Albertus appeared poised to cut the lead in half late in the opening half when Falcon junior forward Jamal Howard (West Haven, Conn.) made a spectacular individual play and fired a shot that beat Esposito, but hit the inside of the left post and bounced away to preserve the 2-0 score.
The NCAA Tournament field will be announced at the end of this weekend. It will be Suffolk’s first appearance in an NCAA Men’s Soccer Tournament.