XML Box Score Grantham, PA – At the end of the night, the Falcons left the field with a 4-2 victory over Dickinson College. The Red Devils—they left wondering, "what if?"
No. 1 Messiah College took a 4-0 lead before holding on for a 4-2 decision, and benefited from enough big plays on both sides of the field to move to 7-0.
Brandon West made five saves for the Falcons, including a huge stop on a penalty kick when the game was still scoreless.
"That seemed like a weird game, for sure," head coach
Brad McCarty said, reflecting on the shifts in momentum. "Dickinson's a good team and they created good opportunities to score. I think we need to do a better job keeping the ball after building a lead."
The Falcons led 4-0 into the 65th minute, but long before then Dickinson almost took a 1-0 lead. That moment came in just the 9th minute of play when Messiah's
Mike Kovach was whistled for takedown near the Falcons' goal box, setting up a penalty kick by Danny Sheppard. But his attempt was saved by West, sending the fans into celebration and momentum to Messiah.
Moments later,
Jeremy Payne put the Falcons up 1-0 after taking a long feed from
Danny Brandt down the right side and going one-on-one with keeper Reed Milbrath. Payne touched past Milbrath and sent his shot past his dive and over the goal line.
Less than five minutes later Payne struck again, this time following up a shot by Brandt in front of the goal. The play started quickly down the left side this time, as
Jack Thompson cut into the box before slotting to Brandt in the middle for his shot.
"I thought we did a good job of getting through (Dickinson's) midfield and creating chances," McCarty said. "(Dickinson) will let you generate stuff near their goal, and we took advantage of that."
The pair of goals for Payne put his season total to seven, and Messiah took that 2-0 lead through halftime.
Less than four minutes into the second-half the Falcons added to their lead. Again in transition Messiah attacked, this time with Brandt leading the way down the right side. He cut middle and passed across the box to Thompson. He eluded his defender with a few touches to his left and fired a shot past Milbrath, scoring unassisted.
Thompson also contributed to the Falcons' fourth goal 10 minutes later when he lofted a cross from the left side to
Mike Kovach's beautiful, high-arcing header over Milbrath's leap. It was both his fourth assist and Kovach's fourth goal of the season.
At that point the Falcons seemed on their way to their sixth-straight shutout, but Dickinson ruined that plan. In the 65th minute Jonathan Harper was posted at the top of the box for the Red Devils and passed back to Alfred Hylton-Dei for a quick shot through the defense and into the far right side of the goal. West seemed shielded on the play, and could not react in time to cover the goal.
Now trailing 4-1, Dickinson got another goal back in the 79th minute by way of an unfortunate breakdown by Messiah in transition. Dickinson cleared the ball from their own end, with
Matt Kyne and Jason Santos colliding in the midfield in their attempts to possess. The ball landed free and Braedon Kelly ran onto possession and attacked quickly down the left side. Nearing the corner of the 18 he passed across the box to Santos, who made his own run through the midfield after getting on his feet. With the ball barely eluding four Messiah defenders Santos' quick shot went past West to make it 4-2.
"Our second group did not do a great job of holding possession, and I think we lost interest a bit," McCarty said. "We can't allow that to happen. We have to be better in that situation."
Despite making it 4-2, their deficit was too much to make up and Dickinson fell to 4-2 on the season. The loss also dropped Dickinson to 0-34 all-time against Messiah, with the Falcons now holding a 132-19 all-time lead in goals scored.
As mentioned, Messiah moved to 7-0 with the win and will next play on Saturday, Sept. 20 at Montclair State.
