NOVEMBER 16, 2008
KING’S DOWNS CATHOLIC 2-1 TO WIN ECAC CHAMPIONSHIP
WILKES-BARRE -- The King’s College men’s soccer team won its first post-season championship of any kind as the Monarchs posted an exciting 2-1 victory over Catholic University to claim the Eastern College Athletic Conference Southern Regional title Sunday at McCarthy Stadium.
With the win, King’s ended its finest season ever with a 16-1-5 campaign while Catholic concluded its year at 14-7.
The third-seeded Cardinals would take a 1-0 lead at 39:56 of the first half when Brian Maher scored an unassisted goal.
Top-seeded King’s would knot the score at 1-1 just 1:23 later when Cameron Audette scored on a through pass from Dan Carle at the 41:29 mark. In the second half, the Monarchs would push across what proved to be the game winning goal when Billy Elliott struck net off an assist from Joe Bender following a direct kick with 20:33 left in the contest.
Tim Kelly made five saves in goal for the Monarchs while Catholic counterpart Quinn Daly did not post a save.
Audette was named most valuable player of the tournament after scoring five goals with one assist in the three-game event. He netted two goals in a 4-3 overtime win against Widener in the first round on Wednesday, then added a pair of goals in Saturday’s 4-0 semi-finals win over Wilkes, before scoring one last goal in the final game of his career. As a senior, Audette scored a school-record 55 points on another school-record 23 goals with nine assists. He also graduates as King’s all-time career scoring leader with 105 points on 43 goals and 19 assists.
The win was especially sweet for the Monarchs, who did not qualify for the MAC Freedom Conference playoffs despite losing only one game all season long. The Monarchs finished tied for fifth in the conference standings with a 3-1-4 league mark and did not lose to any of the teams that qualified. King’s fell short of the playoffs due to a newly implemented points system awarded to teams for wins and losses. The Monarchs were tied in points for the fifth and final playoff berth with Eastern University, then lost out on a subsequent tie-breaking criteria.
The Monarchs would prove their worth in the ECAC tournament, downing MAC Commonwealth Conference runner-up Widener 4-3 in overtime. King’s then posted a dominating 4-0 victory over Freedom Conference runner-up Wilkes in Saturday’s semi-finals. King’s championship win over Catholic came against a squad that finished second in the Landmark Conference Tournament.