Box Score
MANCHESTER, N.H. – No. 5 Southern New Hampshire University wrapped up its second straight Northeast-10 Conference regular season men's soccer title with a 7-1 win over The College of Saint Rose on Friday night at Larkin Field. The Penmen, coming off their first loss in over a year, end the regular season 14-1-1 and 11-1-1 in the NE-10, while the Golden Knights see their season come to a close at 1-14-2 and 1-10-1 in the league. SNHU has now won 22 straight games at Larkin Field.
Southern New Hampshire won its second straight and fourth overall NE-10 regular season title, with the others coming in 2008, 2009 and 2013. With the top overall seed in next week's Northeast-10 Championship, the Penmen will have home field throughout, and open Tuesday against eighth-seeded American International College. Game time will be announced in the near future.
Senior Joe Mahr (Fayetteville, N.Y.) opened the scoring in the 19th minute with his blast from 30 yards out that found the upper left corner of the Golden Knight goal. Sofiane Tergou (Bitche, France) made it 2-0 at the 26:36 mark when he took a pass from Mahr, deked a Saint Rose defender and fired from 10 yards for his fifth goal of the season. SNHU would see its lead cut in half with 4:24 left before halftime on an own goal following a misplay on a Golden Knight attack.
A pair of goals by Sebastian Stezewski (New Britain, Conn.) just under seven minutes apart early in the second half put the game away. The first, in the 48th minute, came off a rebound of an initial shot by Miguel Carneiro (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). The second, which made it 4-1, came at the 54:21 mark when Dominic Samuel (Toronto, Ontario) collected a blocked shot and made a back pass to Stezewski who scored his 10th goal of the season.
Stezewski assisted on the next tally, Kenny Doublette's (Port-au-Prince, Haiti) goal at the 66:10 mark. Callum Williams (Ossett, England) made it 6-1 when he headed home a left-to-right corner kick by Jonathan Lupinelli (Mont de Marsan, France) at 68:33, while Gilbert Manier (Kigali, Rwanda) closed out the scoring with two seconds remaining.
Dom DiMaggio (Rome, N.Y.) made one save over the first 68:34 before giving way in goal to Andrew Pesci (Windham, N.H.), who was not forced to make a save. Colan Balkwell made two saves for Saint Rose in the first half before giving way to Christian Esposito, who stopped five shots over the final 45 minutes. The Penmen held a 29-10 shot advantage and took eight of the game's 10 corner kicks.
Prior to the game, the Penmen honored 11 seniors playing in their final regular season home contest; Carneiro, DiMaggio, Doublette, Mahr, Williams, Danillo Andrade (Danbury, Conn.), Keegan Campbell (Norton, Mass.), Brian Grisell (Brookfield, Conn.), Yannick Kabala (Manchester, N.H.), Kyle Logan (Shelburne, Vt.) and Chris Pereira (Ludlow, Mass.).
Southern New Hampshire is seeking to become the first program to win three straight Northeast-10 tournament titles in next week's championship for the first time since Merrimack College won three straight from 1995-97.
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