Men's Soccer Advances In NEAC Playoffs; Wins 2-0 At Berks

The Wells College men's soccer team won its first-round North Eastern Athletic Conference playoff game by a 2-0 score at Penn State-Berks on Tuesday, Nov. 1. Justin Bingham scored both goals for the Express, both in the second half of the game. Owen May and the Wells defense recorded the shutout. Wells improved to 11-4-3 on the season and Penn State-Berks is 9-10-0.

Wells advances to the NEAC semifinals this weekend. The Express will play against first-place Morrisville State College at 4:30 p.m. Saturday in Morrisville, N.Y.

The first half of Tuesday's match was scoreless, although Wells threatened to take an early lead when the first shot of the match came off the foot of Express forward Christian Garavito and was denied by the post.

Wells carried the pressure in the second half and outshot Penn State-Berks by a 12-8 margin over the last 45 minutes.

The pressure paid off in the 55th minute, when Benjamen Schanbacher's shot hit the post, but Justin Bingham was on the spot to score on the rebound into the left corner of the net. It was the fourth goal of the season for Bingham. He doubled the Wells lead in the 78th minute in similar fashion as a shot from Schanbacher was blocked by the Berks defense, but Bingham slotted it home.

Bingham, a sophomore midfielder, recorded the first multi-goal game of his career.

With a 2-0 lead and 12 minutes to play, Wells allowed just four shots from Berks down the stretch, and none of them were on target. The shutout for Owen May was his eighth this season and set a program record for goalkeeper shutouts in a single season. He has 12 shutouts in his career.

Wells finished fifth in the regular season and traveled to Penn State-Berks for the opening round. Berks finished in a third-place tie in the regular season with Keuka College and was determined to be the fourth seed via tiebreaker. It was the second time this season that Wells defeated Penn State-Berks, as Wells won the regular-season match 1-0 in overtime at home on Oct. 16. The Express has won all 11 meetings in the all-time series against Penn State-Berks.

The first semifinal on Saturday will pair Wells against Morrisville in a rematch of last year's NEAC Championship game. The second semifinal will be second-seed Penn State-Abington against Keuka at 7 p.m. Penn State-Abington defeated SUNY Polytechnic 2-1 and Keuka defeated Lancaster Bible 1-0. The championship game will be held Sunday at a time to be determined.