MOUNT VERNON, Ohio – Notre Dame won their fourth consecutive match Wednesday, turning back Mount Vernon Vernon Nazarene in an American Mideast Conference (AMC) tilt on the road. The Falcons scored the first and third goals of the match to earn a 2-1 victory.
Junior George Kephart (Parma, Ohio) and freshman Luke Holmes (Oldham, England) each scored, and junior goal keeper Craig Pickering (Newcastle, England) made three saves, as NDC improved their AMC mark to 2-0.
Wednesday's match was delayed a day after the teams' originally scheduled Tuesday match was postponed due to the sudden illness of one of the match officials. The match marked just the third time the two teams have met and the first won by NDC in the series. MVNU played in the AMC South Division from 2002 to 2007. The league's North and South circuits have been merged for the 2008-09 season.
Mount Vernon (4-3-2, 1-1-2) put pressure on the Falcon defense early in the match. The Cougars got off a number of quality shots in the first 11 minutes of the contest. Then, in the middle minutes of the first period, the Falcons wrested away control of the game's momentum.
Greg Carroll (Sr./Dunfermline, Scotland), Kephart, and Jonathan Morris (Jr./Huddersfield, England) put pressure on MVNU keeper Alex Stout (Jr./Pataskala, Ohio) with quality scoring chances from the 12th minute through the 20th. The pressure culminated with a George Kephart netfinder at 19:18. Kephart beat the Cougar defense to notch his fourth goal of the season.
Both sides then clamped down on their own end until the Cougars evened the score, 1-1, in the 43rd minute. MVNU's goal came on a Steve Armstrong (So./Mansfield, Ohio) cross that Adam Worrall (Sr./Blacklick, Ohio) nodded into the Falcon goal, past a sprawling Pickering. The goal was Worrall's ninth of the season - that ranks second in the AMC.
The period ended with the score knotted at 1-1, and it would remain so on the Cougar Field scoreboard until the 72nd minute.
At 71:09, Luke Holmes took advantage of a failed clear and found the back of the net for a 2-1 NDC advantage. That would turn out to be the match-winner, with the Cougars failing to pressure Pickering as they had early on in the contest. They would get off three shots, none on goal, in the final 20 minutes of the match.
In the 90 minutes, NDC out-shot MVNU, 15-10. The Falcons put eight shots on goal, while the Cougars landed five.
“This is a quality win against a good team on the road,” said head coach Michael “Mac” McBride. “I like the way we competed today.”
The victory for McBride's lads is their fourth in a row. It came, albeit a day late, against a Cougar squad on a streak of its own; MVNU came into the day unbeaten (4-0-2) in their last six matches. One of those two ties came in Mount Vernon's previous game, a 0-0 effort against the team which Tuesday earned the No. 1 spot on the NAIA Coaches' Poll, Rio Grande. In fact, over their six previous matches, the staunch Cougar defense had yielded just one goal total.
NDC's 7-1 start ties a program record; the Falcons also went 7-1 to start the 2005 season.
The Falcons' 2008 season will continue Saturday, when they visit Ohio Dominican. Kickoff in Columbus is slated for 7 p.m. Both teams will head into the match among the four unbeaten squads remaining in AMC play. ODU is 1-0 in the circuit and 3-2-1 overall.
NOTES FROM THE NEST...
TIED AT THE TOP: Luke Holmes and George Kephart remained tied atop the NDC scoring ranks with their performances Wednesday in Mount Vernon. Each has scored 12 points this season – Holmes on five goals and two assists and Kephart and four goals and four assists. … Through eight matches, NDC has outscored foes, 18-6. Their 0.75 goals-against average ranks second in the AMC, behind Rio Grande's 0.63 mark.
DANGEROUS CATS: In handing the Cougars a loss on their own field, the Falcons did something no team has done since Oct. 24, 2007, when Ohio Dominican topped MVNU in Mount Vernon. The Cougars had been 4-0-2 at home since.
