Central Penn men’s soccer season ends in historic fashion
The Knights made it to the USCAA national championship game
By Dalton Koller
Knightly News Reporter
dalton.koller@mymail.centralpenn.edu
The Central Penn College men’s soccer season has come to a close, and during that time this team did some truly incredible things.
Coming off a loss to Manor College in the Eastern States Athletics Conference championship game last year, the Knights were looking not only get to back to that game but win it the second time around.
Photo courtesy Central Penn Athletics
However, they would have to do it without some of their top scorers from last season, including Jake Philippe, Adam Youssef, Oscar Flores and Amson Charleston. They’d also lost their goalkeeper, Andrew Hunter, as well as losing a key player to injury, Alija Korkutovic, before the season began.
The team would have to lean on captains Dylan Luong, Greg Conkle and Blake Eiserman for great play and leadership, as well as a large crop of incoming players to get the Knights back to the promised land. And that’s exactly what they did, and more.
Incoming players like Donnie Powell, Chris Saboe-Moore, Matt Wheaton, Grant Berstein and Zach Sperlich stepped up big time and picked up the slack that the former players left. Captains Luong, Conkle and Eiserman had great seasons as well, and first-year player Jose Hurtado filled in that missing goalkeeper’s role spectacularly.
Going into the ESAC championship game against Manor again, the team had a record of 12-3 and was the second-ranked team in Division II of the United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA). They left the game as ESAC champions, exacting their revenge on Manor from the year prior, with a 2-0 victory.
With the conference championship won, it was time for the Knights to head to Pittsburgh to play in the USCAA National Championship.
They started their run against 10th-ranked Penn State New Kensington and moved on to the next round with a 3-2 win in overtime, courtesy of a Luong goal. Powell and Anthony Cervantes also netted goals.
They then faced off against fourth-ranked Paul Smith’s College and won convincingly with a final score of 4-0. Paul Smith opened the scoring and Central Penn chalked up a goal around halfway through the first half, and then Sperlich, Eiserman and Berstein tallied three more goals onto the scoreboard.
The Knights advanced to the championship game and would face Central Maine Community College on Nov. 17, and it was bad for Central Penn from the start. Central Maine scored two goals in the first three minutes, and at the end of the first half, the Knights were down 6-0. Central Maine scored another goal, and just like that, the Knights’ playoff run and season were over.
Although the second-place finish was a tough pill for the Knights to swallow, the team still has a lot to be proud of.
It was the first time Central Penn had made it to the national playoffs, and they made it to the championship game on their first trip.
Powell and Chris Saboe-Moore took home USCAA Division II First Team All-American honors, Wheaton took home second team honors and Berstein was an honorable mention. Tyler Daron also won the student-athlete of the year award.
They had won their first-ever conference championship, and head coach Brian Osborne was deservedly named ESAC coach of the year.
This team has a very bright future, and they have a lot to look forward to next year. They will look not only to defend their ESAC championship but also make it back to the national championship and win it all.
Koller is co-president of The Knightly News Media Club @ Central Penn College.
Comment or story idea? Contact KnightlyEditors@CentralPenn.Edu.
Edited by media-club co-adviser and blog editor Professor Michael Lear-Olimpi.
