By Michael Gardner
Eagle Staff Writer
Dale McDonald was the hero again, securing the first Patriot League win for the AU men’s soccer team with a 44th-minute goal to push the Eagles past Bucknell, 1-0, Sept. 29 at Reeves Field.
“I think it’s a huge win, especially when it’s a team that’s on top of the table going in,” AU head coach Todd West said. “It’s a strange game and today I thought it was more of a battle, more of a fight. It wasn’t going to be our best soccer, but we found a way to win it.”
AU (5-4-1, 1-0-1 PL) tested Bucknell freshman goalkeeper Mike Lansing early. The Eagles penetrated into the attacking third, but Stephen Hauschild’s shot sailed over the crossbar in the 20th minute.
Both teams controlled possession in the midfield until Bucknell (5-3-2, 1-1 PL) had its best chance of scoring in the first half when Brendan Burgdorf split two Eagle defenders. Burgdorf fired a shot inside the 18-yard box, but it went wide off AU junior goalkeeper Billy Knutsen.
The scoring drought ended in the 44th minute when the Eagles found the goal they had been looking for. Conor Osborne cleared the ball out from the defense to McDonald after a Bucknell free kick was broken up. Lansing came out to prevent an attack and make the save, only to run into a Bison defender, which allowed McDonald to run through both players and score his third goal of the season just before halftime.
“[McDonald was] just fighting and working as Dale always does, winning a ball and scoring kind of a garbage goal, but there’s no such thing when it wins you a game,” West said. “We said it was an ugly goal, but a thing of beauty.”
McDonald was active all afternoon and it paid off at the end of the day with the game-winning goal.
“The coach had been getting on me a lot about being in better spots,” McDonald said. “He needed more out of me, so that’s what I did today. I try to buzz around, keep active, be electric on the field and sooner or later, it would pay off. And it actually did today.”
Bucknell went on the offensive in the second half and outshot the Eagles 7-1, but could not find the equalizer. Jesse Klug fired a shot from the left side of the box five minutes into the second half that hit the post and Mayowa Alli’s header in the 77th minute was saved off a Bucknell corner kick.
Knutsen, who had five saves in the match, managed to keep a clean sheet and nail down the victory for the Eagles.
Although Bucknell outshot AU 13-4 and held a 4-3 advantage on corner kicks, this is the fifth straight year that the Eagles have defeated the Bison in the regular season.
The Eagles will now travel to West Point, N.Y. Oct. 6 to take on Patriot League foe Army.
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