A Battle of the Big Cats For the ECC Men’s Soccer Finals
Central Islip, NY - It will be at battle of the big cats as the #1 Dowling College Golden Lions host the #2 Molloy College Lions in the ECC Men's Soccer Championship game this Saturday, November 8 at 1:00 PM.
Both teams come off a strong semifinals performance with Dowling shutting down the #4 Bridgeport Purple Knights 4-0 and Molloy defeating the #3 Queens College Knights, 6-1.
The Golden Lions finished the season atop the ECC with an unblemished conference record of 8-0 and an overall record of 15-2. Stumbling out of the gate the Golden Lions were 3-2 after 5 games before steamrolling their way with 12 straight victories catapulting Dowling into the conference playoffs.
The Dowling attack is led by Junior Forward Lamine Traore. Traore compiled 46 total points including 22 goals on the season for the Golden Lions with 9 coming in the game winning variety. A keen eye and un-selfish soccer has helped Steven Schneider lead the Golden Lions with 5 assists this season. In the net this season Nemanja Veljovic has been nothing short of stellar, recording 12 shutouts and 44 saves which he attributes some of the recognition to his back line anchored by the senior trio of Patrick Cunningham, Chris Green and Robert Miller.
This year, the Molloy College men's soccer team compiled an overall record of 10-5-2 and an East Coast Conference mark of 5-2-1, which earned the Lions the No. 2 seed in the league tournament. Molloy has also sported two unbeaten streaks during the season - a seven-game and a current five-match stretch. Senior goalkeeper Ettore Morelli (North Bellmore, N.Y.) is nationally ranked in a trio of categories. He is 33rd in save percentage (.784), 46th in saves per game (4.71) and 62nd in goals-against average (1.26).
