BOX SCORE
PHILADELPHIA – The St. Bonaventure men's soccer team opened up Atlantic 10 Conference play on Friday night on the road and earned a 2-0 victory over St. Joseph's University. With the win, The Brown and White get a very important first victory in their opening match of league play, improving to 7-4-1 overall on the season.
Bonnies senior Nicholas Perillo opened up the scoring in the 6th minute of the contest with a blast that ended up in the upper right corner of the goal for his team leading fifth goal of the season. SBU nearly had a second goal in the opening frame, when senior Kolby Banker would ring a shot off the post in the 35th minute. St. Bonaventure would end the first half with a one shot advantage on Saint Joseph's, outshooting the Hawks 7-6.
In the second half of play, the Bonnies would hang on to their one-goal lead and eventually get some added insurance in the 87th minute when senior James Reed notched his first goal of the season, putting the Bonnies up 2-0 late in the match. The timely goal for Reed secured the victory for the Brown and White, as the final minutes of the match would come to a close.
Saint Joseph's outshot the Bonnies 17-12 in the match; however, redshirt junior goalkeeper Jeremy Figler recorded five saves in the shutout victory for the Brown and White, while Hawks keeper Andrew D'Ottavi had four saves in the loss.
Bonnies head coach Mel Mahler, pleased with his team's performance tonight, thought "tonight's win was a result of our boys committing to the team - everyone working hard doing their best to play the role we asked of them. St. Joe's style of play makes it difficult to get into a rhythm but we managed to create some wonderful scoring opportunities and did an excellent job of absorbing their pressure. Great effort by Figler in the net and his defenders in front of him to get the shutout. Perillo scored a brilliant goal & Emmett played an important role in James' goal by breaking down their defense from the flank. Now we hit the reset button and get working on our game plan for La Salle on Sunday".
St. Bonaventure returns to action on Sunday (Oct. 13), when the team travels to take on La Salle at 1:00 p.m. La Salle is coming off a 3-1 victory over Duquesne in their A-10 Conference opener also on Friday night. The Bonnies will look to maintain their momentum in the opening weekend of conference action.
