Nov. 4, 2008

Box Score

River Forest, IL - The Dominican University Stars flew past the Edgewood College Eagles 5-0 on Tuesday afternoon in the semifinals of the 2008 Northern Athletics Conference (NAC) Men's Soccer Tournament to advance to the conference championship on Saturday afternoon.

Dominican's Piotr Sliwa (Chicago, IL) and Maxwell Gutbrod (Slinger, WI) combined for the shutout for the Stars in goal. Sliwa faced two shots in over 70 minutes in goal before giving way to Gutbrod for the final 20 minutes. Sliwa lowered his goals against average on the season to a miniscule 0.57 while the team's goals against average dipped to 0.59.

Offensively, the Stars' Lionel Tovar (Cicero, IL) logged his team-leading eighth game-winning goal of the season as he tallied the Stars' first goal of the game in the sixth minute of play. Junior Juan Saldana (Foristell, MO) picked up the first of his two assists of the game on the play, and now has 13 assists of the season.

Freshman Edwin Lagunas (Waukegan, IL), sophomores Michael Kapusta (Bartlett, IL) and Edwin Rodriguez (Chicago, IL) and senior Matt Kochanowski (Arlington Heights, IL) all scored for the Stars, who have the nation's second-ranked offense, averaging 4.41 goals per game.

Dominican dominated the pace of play, outshooting the Eagles 19-2 and holding a 5-2 advantage in corner kicks.

The Stars will now play the Aurora University Spartans on Saturday in the NAC Championship game. The game is a rematch of last year's NAC Tournament Championship which the Stars won 2-0. Kickoff is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. on Dominican's West Campus Field.