Men's Soccer

`Wick Advances to MAC Semifinals in Dramatic Fashion

ONEONTA, N.Y. - After nothing could be settled in 110 minutes, the Hartwick men's soccer team out scored visiting Western Michigan 4-2 in penalty kicks to earn a trip to the Mid- American Conference semifinals, Tuesday evening at Elmore Field.

After two overtime periods, the game was knotted at 1-1. The Hawks battled back from a goal down (0-1) in penalty kicks as goalie Jeremy Vuolo (Downingtown, Pa.) came up big with back-to-back saves on the third and fourth Bronco shooters, Jordan Fylonenko and Tom Oatley, to pull the Hawks back into primary position. After missing its first attempt, Hartwick capitalized on three consecutive tries by Barry Pearson (Linlithgow, Scotland), Liam Parrington (Woking, England), and Chris Sardon (Sacramento, Calif.) before Michael Cunningham (Dunedin, New Zealand) put in the clincher as the Hawks' final shooter. Western Michigan's season comes to a close at 7-10-2.

Hartwick, 5-5-7 overall, opened scoring at the 41:55 mark of the first half as Steven Amaya (New York, N.Y.) picked up his first collegiate goal. The freshman blasted a shot from 20 yards out that followed a narrow path in between several players and beat goal keeper Casey Aubil. The Hawks went into intermission with a 1-0 lead.

In the 67th minute, Western Michigan evened the game at 1-1, as Jeff Guntzviller collected his first goal of the campaign as he tapped the ball into an open net.

With 10 minutes remaining in regulation, Aubil was helped off the field after sustaining an injury to his head following a collision with Hartwick's Austin McCann (Jenks, Okla.). Reed came in and made two saves in the final 10 minutes to help send the game into overtime.

The last time these two teams played, October 20, Hartwick and WMU battled to a 3-3 tie after two overtime periods. Tuesday's result does go into the books as a tie for record purposes.

Hartwick, the third seed in the tournament, will travel to Akron, Ohio and play second seed Buffalo, Friday evening at Lee Jackson Field. Kick-off is scheduled for 5 p.m. This will be the second meeting between the two schools in 2007 with Hartwick posting a 2-1 victory over UB in Buffalo on November 3.

The winner of that match-up will play either top-seeded Akron or fifth-seeded Northern Illinois in the title game, Sunday afternoon. NIU, the defending MAC Tournament champs, advanced to the semifinals after downing fourth-seed Bowling Green 3-0 in the other play-in contest, earlier Tuesday afternoon.