Box Score
LANCASTER, Pa. – The Gettysburg College men's soccer team came up short in its bid to win its first Centennial Conference championship since 2001, falling by a 4-1 count to second-seeded and No. 18-ranked Johns Hopkins University Sunday afternoon in the conference title match at Franklin & Marshall College.
It was a 1-1 match before the Blue Jays (17-3) scored three times over the final 27:30 to secure their Centennial Conference-leading seventh men's soccer title.
Scott Bukoski led Hopkins with two goals and an assist.
Gettysburg, which was making its second Centennial Conference championship appearance in the last three years and its third overall, closes out its season with a 12-7-1 record. The fourth-seeded Bullets advanced to the championship match with a 2-1 overtime victory over top-seeded and No. 11-ranked Franklin & Marshall on Saturday.
The Blue Jays never trailed after David Drake scored in the 15th minute. Drake took a short cross from Bukoski on the right side of the box and slid a shot into the lower left corner of the net.
The Bullets pulled even in the 31st minute, when junior Chris Bayon (Langhorne, Pa./Lawrenceville (N.J.)) tapped a pass to sophomore Geoff Menge (Doylestown, Pa./Central Bucks West), who, from 10 yards out, delivered a diagonal shot just inside the right post for his seventh goal of the season.
The score would remain 1-1 over the remainder of an evenly-played first half in which the Blue Jays held a 6-4 advantage in shots.
Hopkins scored what held up as the game-winning goal on a Max Venker penalty kick in the 63rd minute. After getting tackled in the box, Venker deposited a shot that deflected off the hand of the keeper and off the left post before finding the back of the net.
Bukoski scored his first goal of the game in the 72nd minute, taking a long pass from the midfield and slipping the ball past a charging keeper from 25 yards out to make it 3-1.
Gettysburg had a pair of shots to make it a one-goal game, but a Bayon header in the 74th minute glanced off the crossbar and a Bobby Moore (Harpswell, Maine/Hyde School) rip landed in the stomach of Blue Jay keeper Matt Mierley in the 75th minute.
Bukoski sealed the win in the 89th minute, beating a defender one-on-one for his second goal of the game and 19th of the season.
In a chippy second half, the Bullets were whistled for 15 fouls and five yellow cards. For the game, Gettysburg was guilty of 26 fouls against 10 for Johns Hopkins. The Blue Jays out-shot the Bullets 10-4 in the second half and 16-8 for the afternoon.
Senior goalie Matt Langston (Harrisburg, Pa./Central Dauphin East) made six saves in his final collegiate appearance while Mierley stopped three shots for the Blue Jays, who receive an automatic bid in the NCAA Division III Tournament.
