EAST STROUDSBURG – East Stroudsburg University will play for its third PSAC men’s soccer championship in the last five seasons and the 20th in school history when the Warriors travel to Shippensburg for Saturday night’s championship tilt at 6 p.m. at David See Field.
The Warriors (13-6) beat Millersville 1-0 in the semifinals on Wednesday night and have won a staggering 13 straight championship games in which they have appeared since 1992.
Head coach Jerry Sheska, in his 29th season, has been at the helm of the program for 15 championships – 1985, 1989, 1992-95, 1997-03 and 2006-07. His teams have played in four other finals, making Saturday’s game the 20th PSAC championship game in his record-setting career that includes 424 victories.
Shippensburg (14-5) brings an 11-game winning streak into the final and is looking for just the third PSAC title in school history. Shippensburg won the championship outright in 1975, tied with Lock Haven in 1971, and last played in a conference final in 1988.
The Red Raiders won the regular season meeting with ESU, 1-0, on a goal by Dave Rostad in the 49th minute, for the third of their 11 straight victories. They were picked last of the 10 schools in the PSAC preseason poll after winning just one game in each of the previous two seasons, but claimed the No. 1 seed in the PSAC tournament and beat defending champion Slippery Rock 5-0 on Wednesday to set a school record for victories.
ESU and Shippensburg split their previous two PSAC playoff meetings, both semifinals. The Warriors won 1-0 in 1990 and lost 1-0 in 1988, and hold a 43-9-1 advantage in the all-time series. This will mark the fifth school that ESU will play in a PSAC championship game, and the school’s 26th appearance in 41 PSAC championship tilts since 1969.
Senior forward Shastri Spencer assisted on sophomore forward Kevin Lombardo’s goal in the Warriors’ semifinal win over Millersville and leads the team with seven goals and seven assists this season. Spencer did not play in the first game at Shippensburg. Lombardo scored his second goal of the season, junior Greg Schook has five goals and freshman forward Marc DeFeo has two goals off the bench.
Redshirt seniors Danny Drago and Michael Kane and senior Drew Repsher lead the Warriors’ midfield and all have PSAC championship experience. Drago was a starter on the 2006 and 2007 championship teams and will make his 88th career start on Saturday, while Kane played on the 2006 team before missing the 2007 season due to injury. Repsher was also a member of the 2007 team in his first season at ESU.
Senior Troy Hernandez has played all but nine minutes in goal for the Warriors this season, and his eight solo shutouts are the most by an ESU goalkeeper since the statistic is available (since 2003). He had three saves in the semifinal win and has 71 saves, a .826 save percentage and 0.78 goals against average during his final campaign at ESU.
Three players have started all 19 games at back in front of Hernandez – junior Josh Arcona, sophomore Steve Sollecito and freshman Khriswayne Wallace. Sophomore Suane McLeish has made 17 starts and returned to the lineup on Wednesday after missing the previous two games.
Freshman Matthew Geidner has stepped into a starting midfield spot in 14 games and has four goals and one assist. Kane has five goals and three assists, second on the team in both categories, and Drago has four goals and two assists this season and 14 goals in his career.
For Shippensburg, Miles Harriger scored his team-leading 11th goal of the season for the game’s first goal in the 5-0 rout of Slippery Rock in the semifinal contest. Michael Celius has eight goals and Dave Rostad and Derrick Roy have seven goals each as part of a 49-goal attack for the Red Raiders – more than double their total of 23 over the previous two seasons.
Sophomore Clay Sale has started 14 of Ship’s 19 games in goal and has an 11-2 record, including five shutouts. A native of Fort Collins, Colorado, Sale played in all 18 games as a freshman and made 12 starts.
Shippensburg head coach Jeremy Spering, a 2002 graduate of Slippery Rock, has guide a team that was 2-27-7 in his first two seasons to a 14-5 record and 6-3 PSAC mark after going winless in the conference in his first two years. The turnaround includes a 27-8 margin in second-half goals and a 2-1 record in overtime games.
Notes:
* The Warriors improved to 18-1 in PSAC playoff games at home under head coach Jerry Sheska with the 1-0 win over Millersville in the semifinals.
* Sheska’s teams are 4-5 on the road in the PSAC postseason, but are 3-1 since 1991 after going 1-4 in his first eight seasons.
* Sheska was a three-year starter for the Warriors from 1965-67 – near the end of a 13-year span that the PSAC did not sponsor a men’s soccer championship. The 1965 team reached the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division I tournament, and Sheska was co-captain of the 1967 team.
* Sheska was also the first coach of the ESU women’s soccer program and had a 39-10-2 record in three seasons from 1992-94. He won the 1994 men’s and women’s PSAC titles on the same day in Altoona and has a career record of 463-166-33 (.724) when combining the two sports.
* ESU’s 43-9-1 record against Shippensburg goes back to the first meeting in 1962. The Warriors are 30-4 against the Red Raiders under Sheska, falling in 2010, 2002, 1996 and 1988 (PSAC semifinals).
* In this week’s NCAA Atlantic Region rankings, Shippensburg is No. 6 and ESU is unranked. The region’s top four teams will be selected for the NCAA Division II Tournament; the field will be unveiled on Monday at 7 p.m. on ncaa.com.
* Mercyhurst is ranked No. 1 but was not among the four schools to qualify for the PSAC playoffs. Millersville is No. 2, followed by Slippery Rock, West Virginia Wesleyan and Charleston.
* ESU has played in the NCAA Tournament 16 times in 29 years under Sheska and 22 times in school history – 19 in Division II and three in Division I.
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