Bowling Green State University Athletics
Duquesne Defeats Falcons In Diadora Classic, 3-0
September 08, 2002 | Men's Soccer
Sept. 8, 2002
Bowling Green, Ohio - Duquesne University scored three unanswered goals in the second half to defeat host Bowling Green in the final game of the 2002 Diadora Classic at Cochrane Field. With the win, Duquesne won the tournament.
The Dukes (2-1-0) broke into the scoring column when Damien Pottinger scored his first of two goals at 58:46. John Bechke and Brian McNelis assisted. DU struck twice more within nearly five minutes of each other later in the half when David Gingrich connected at 81:36 and Pottinger added his second goal at 86:55.
"It's a frustrating time for us right now," BGSU coach Mel Mahler said. "We feel we are a much better team than 0-4. I think we need to be patient. We have a lot of new faces on the field. It's just going to take us a while to adjust. We played well against Duquesne for 60 minutes, then we circled there after. It was a better effort than the day before (4-1 loss vs. Saint Francis).
"Both Mark (Dougherty) and I realize we need to be patient and I hope our players understand that as well. A person's character is evaluated by how they deal with adversity. And we are certainly going to be challenged and come across our fair share of that this year. It's just a question of how we respond to that."
Junior goalkeeper David DeGraff had five saves in 90 minutes of action. Senior Damion Bennett had two shots on goal while freshman Adrian Akpan and junior Nnamdi Ihemelu had one each.
BGSU (0-4) now goes on the road for its next two matches beginning at Detroit-Mercy on Wednesday, Sept. 11, at 5 p.m. The next home match for the Falcons will be Friday, Sept. 20, at 2 p.m. against Ohio State.
Game One on Sunday
Detroit-Mercy got a goal from David Lepore at 67:33 and that proved to be the only scoring of the match as the Titans went on to defeat Saint Francis, 1-0. George Kithas and Brandon Felker assisted on the goal. UDM finished second in the BGSU Diadora Classic due to the margin-of-victory tiebreaker. SFU finished third overall. Both goalkeepers finished with four saves, including UDM's Jason Hamilton and SFU's Bobby Pipech.
All-Tournament Team Duquesne University Damien Pottinger Dan Hartung Terry McNelis Steve OlivarezUniv. of Detroit-Mercy Steve Nottingham Aaron Byrd George Kithas
Saint Francis University Omari Aldridge Bernie Showers Sheu Fortunato
Bowling Green State University Damion Bennett
Tournament Winner - Duquesne University Tournament MVP - Damien Pottinger (Duquesne)
