Appalachian State 1, Davidson 1
October 15, 2006 - BOONE, N.C. ? Appalachian State University men’s soccer and Davidson played to a 1-1, double-overtime tie Sunday afternoon in a heated Southern Conference match at the ASU Soccer Stadium. Both goals came within a five-minute stretch of the second half of the 110-minute match.
Appalachian (7-5-2, 2-2-2 SoCon) held control of much of the match and generated plenty of scoring opportunities that came up short as within two points of fifth-place Furman in the SoCon standings. The Wildcats are 5-10-2 overall and 1-4-1 in the league in seventh place with four points.
The teams played the first 56 minutes scoreless until Arie Muniz (Spring, Texas) put the Apps on the board with his team-best fifth goal of the season. Muniz put away Corey Lugger’s (Irmo, S.C.) pass from the near post into the open net. The assist was Lugger’s ninth, extending his lead in the conference rankings in the category.
The Mountaineers could only hold on to the advantage for 4:24 before the Wildcats scored the equalizer. Davidson was awarded a free kick from well outside the box and converted on the set kick. Charlie Reiter took the kick and 6-4 Robby Hoak leapt above the defense in the box to put the header into the netting.
Neither team could add the gamewinner in regulation, forcing overtime. ASU had a decent opportunity with 21 seconds left in regulation, taking a hard shot that drilled the crossbar. The first overtime was played without either team taking a shot on goal. Each team fired two shots off in the second overtime and all four were either blocked by the defense or off target with the stalemate lasting through the extra 20 minutes of overtime.
The tie is ASU’s second in three overtime games this season and second in SoCon play. The Mountaineers outshot Davidson, 15-10, but shots on goal were extremely close with ASU holding a one-shot advantage with five. Tyler Smith (Decatur, Ill.) made just his second career start in goal for ASU and stopped 3-of-4 shots he faced. Ben Ashton also finished with three saves, while the ?Cats were credited with a team save for clearing the ball off the endline in the second half.
Sean Sassano (Gastonia, N.C.) led all players with five shots despite being sent to the ground numerous times on hard tackles and fouls. Juan Obregon (Castle Rock, Colo.) took four shots and Cass Baltz led the ?Cats with three shots.
Appalachian will return to action on Tuesday, October 17 with a non-conference match versus Mercer at 3 p.m. at the ASU Soccer Stadium.