SENECA 4, MOHAWK 3

On a near perfect fall-day at Seneca College's Newnham Field, the crowd was treated to some of the most exciting soccer action of the season. The Seneca Sting battled the Mohawk Mountaineers for over 120 minutes and four rounds of penalty kicks before prevailing 4-3 (3-1).  Sting keeper Andrew Cairns faced six penalty shots on the afternoon, but saved his best performance for the penalty kicks at the end. Cairns stopped two of the three shots on net while a third went wide as the Sting advanced to the OCAA championship.

The Mountaineers had the first scoring opportunity of the match in the 20th minute. Nelson Waziri took a shot which deflected off a Sting defender, but keeper Cairns was able to dive to his right to make the save.

Moments later, Mohawk got on the board. Seneca was whistled for a foul in the 18-yard box resulting in a penalty shot. Nenad Njegovan took the shot for Mohawk and calmly kicked the ball into the bottom corner of the net to the right of Cairns for the first goal of the match in the 22nd minute.

Seneca looked to even the match in the 26th minute on a great individual effort by David Alva.  The Sting striker deked around a number of Mountaineer defenders before keeper Alex Mickeloff made the save.

The Sting continued to take the play to the Mountaineers as the first half progressed and once again looked for the equalizer in the 39th minute. Malven Francis took a pass from his teammate and walked in and took a shot from twelve yards out. Mickeloff was once again up to the task to maintain the Mohawk lead heading into the half.

Early in the second half, Seneca finally got on the board. Francis scored in the 46th minute to even the match at 1-1. Mohawk would take the lead again in the 56th minute with a goal from the right foot of Patryk Korbut from twenty-seven yards. The shot eluded a diving Cairns into the keeper's bottom left corner.

With their season on the line, Seneca was awarded a free kick from twenty-one yards out in the 59th minute. Midfielder Mario Lugo-Uribe struck a curling shot with his right foot into the top corner to even the match at 2-2.

In the first extra time period, Mohawk took their third lead of the match on a penalty kick.  Abdullah Abdulla kicked the ball into the middle left portion of the net as the Sting keeper guessed the opposite direction.

With time winding down in the second extra time period, Seneca pulled even for the third time in the match. David Alva took a long pass, ran down the left side, pulled up to beat the defender and made a perfect pass across. Chamalé, running at full speed, one-timed the pass into the back of the net to even the match with only injury time remaining.

The Seneca Sting will move on to the semi-final of the OCAA Men's Soccer Championship hosted by Redeemer University College October 28-29. Game times can be found at ocaa.com/championships/2012-13/msoccer. For the Mohawk Mountaineers, their season will come to a close following a 5-5-0 season.

Source: Seneca College