PAINESVILLE, Ohio - The Saginaw Valley men's soccer team extended its winning streak to five today (Oct. 1) as they defeated Lake Erie, 2-1 in a Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) match-up.
The Cardinals came out strong scoring at the 3:36 mark. Senior leader Anthony Palazzolo (Warren, Mich. / De La Salle HS) found the back of the net off a rebound for his third goal of the season to give Saginaw Valley the 1-0 advantage the entire first half of play. The Cardinals out shot Lake Erie 15 to 5 in the first half of the contest.
Lake Erie scored just two and a half minutes into the second half knotting the score at one all. The game would remain tied until the 78:42 mark when freshman Conor Reaume (Troy, Mich.) found freshman Noah Sawyer (East Lansing, Mich. / Haslett HS) for the Saginaw Valley goal.
The Cardinal defense and senior goaltender Piotr Kazmierczak (Stargard, Poland) allowed only 12 shots for Lake Erie compared to Saginaw Valley's 26 shots throughout the game. Head Coach Cale Wassermann stated about today's contest, "Soccer is a 90 minute game and sometimes you need to chip away at your opponents until they breakdown. Tonight, that is what we did. We had a great first half and really dominated play, the Lake Erie goalkeeper played great all night to keep it close. When they scored early in the second half we did not change anything, just continued to chip away by getting quality minutes from all our starters and subs. We finally got the break we were looking for and finished the game strong for another conference win. This was the type of team performance we were looking for before we head to Ashland for Sunday's game".
With the win the Cardinals improve to 6-3-1 overall on the season, and 3-2-1 in the GLIAC, while Lake Erie falls to 1-9-0 overall on the season, and 0-7-0 in the GLIAC. Saginaw Valley will return to action on Sunday (Oct. 3) when they travel to Ashland University. Game time is scheduled for 2:30 pm.