Men's Soccer Ranked No. 25

The Providence College Men's Soccer team traveled to Worcester, Mass. on Friday, Sept. 5, to do battle with the Crusaders of Holy Cross. The team played to a 1-1 tie bringing their record to 2-0-1, the team's best start since 2005 and breaking them into the national rankings at No. 25 for the first time since October 16, 2007.

"It's not where you start, it's where you finish," said Head Coach Chaka Daley. "We've worked hard to earn some respect, but we won't change what we're doing or how hard the guys work. We are trying to become a well-respected program regionally and nationally on a consistent basis."

On Friday the Friars played the Crusaders to a stalemate for the first 32 minutes until junior Timothy Ritter broke the tie with his first goal of the season. Ritter scored off his own rebound after a gorgeous cross from sophomore Alex Redding. The Friars maintained a 1-0 lead into halftime.

The Crusaders came back strong with several chances but were denied repeatedly by junior goalie Tim Murray. In the 67th minute, sophomore Andrew Sousa had a solid opportunity to give PC a two-goal edge. Senior Michael Narciso played the ball to Sousa who was left alone at the top of the box, but the wet grass prevented Sousa from getting a clean shot off.

The Crusaders were finally able to even the score up in the 84th minute when Tom Wilhelm headed it past Murray ending his shutout steak at 263:33. In two overtime periods there was only one real scoring chance for the Crusaders, who couldn't capitalize.

The PC defense has been an iron wall thus far, but when called upon, Murray has responded, wwith already eight saves in the young season.

The game scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 9, against in-state rival Rhode Island was postponed due to inclement weather.

Coach Daley looks forward to the challenges presented by the upcoming schedule.

"All our games are big. We respect all our opponents and our main goal is to be above .500 both in conference play and out of conference play. We've had a pretty good balance and we just want to get completely healthy and all these guys are hungry to play and send a statement with their play."

You can catch the Friars in action again on Saturday, Sept. 13, when they host undefeated Big East rival Georgetown at 2:00 p.m. at Glay Field.