William Penn Crushes Briar Cliff in Final Non-Conference Bout

Sioux City--The Statesmen men's soccer team dominated what had the makings of being another tough battle as it dropped Briar Cliff 5-0 in non-conference action Saturday.

#11 WPU (5-1-1) closed out its non-conference schedule with a strong performance that included the visitors holding a 17-3 advantage in shots, including a 13-1 margin in the second half.

The sides were quiet for the first half of the opening stanza, but Emre Baris (Fr., Dortmund, Germany, Business Management) finally broke up the scoreless tie with a goal at the 21:33 mark, courtesy of an assist from Luigi Mongan (Jr., Manchester, England, Business Management.

That lead held into intermission, but right out of the locker room, the Statesmen turned into a different crew, scoring just 47 seconds into the period off an own goal by the Chargers.  BCU (3-2) entered Saturday receiving vote nationally in the NAIA.

Edan Sears (Jr., Telford, England, Sports Management) then beat the goalkeeper unassisted in the 52nd minute to push the edge to 3-0.  Strahinjia Camagic (Fr., Kraljevo, Serbia, Undecided), in the 77th, and Joseph Kitengie (Sr., Benoni, South Africa, Business Management, in the 79th minute, also put a shot into the netting to cap the scoring.  Camagic assisted on Kitengie's goal.

All four of Kitengie's shots were on target as he paced the navy and gold offensively.  Defensively, Sean Bohan (Jr., Dublin, Ireland, Business Management) needed only two saves to record his fourth shutout of the fall.

"We started off a bit sluggish after the lengthy drive up to Sioux City," Head Coach Simon Brown said.  "We knew Briar Cliff was going to play us tough, being a team that is receiving votes nationally, but we finally got the early goal from Emre.  We made some adjustments at halftime and came out on fire."

"This was a great response after Monday's disappointment against William Carey," Brown added.  "We are four games into a six-game road trip and now look forward to some rest and recovery this week before playing another top conference team in Baker."

Next Up: William Penn travels to Baldwin City, Kan. next Saturday to face Baker in its Heart of America Athletic Conference opener at 7:30 p.m.