Five different players scored a goal to lead the Baruch College Bearcats to a 5-0 rout over the York College Cardinals in a CUNYAC Championship semifinal match played on Wednesday evening at the Aviator Sports Complex in Brooklyn, New York.
With the result, the Bearcats advance to the championship match on Saturday, November 5, to play Lehman College for the trophy and automatic berth to the NCAA Division III National Championship Tournament, which begins on Thursday, November 10.
The Bearcats, who are jointly coached by Ranford Champagnie and Dima Kamenshchik, will be playing in their third all-time championship match (other 2004, 2006).
The players on the team have been very focused in this championship tournament, as evidenced by the fact they have defeated two teams that had previously embarrassed them (CCNY 4-0 loss, York 3-0 loss) during the regular season.
Saturday night’s match up against Lehman is expected to be highly competitive and entertaining. Last year in the semifinals, Lehman defeated the Bearcats on penalty kicks to advance to play in the 2010 Championship Match. This year, the Bearcats won, 2-1, on September 14, at the Met Oval to hand Lehman their only CUNYAC loss this year.
Kyle Keague opened the scoring at 14:38 on an assist from Akil George. They added a second goal a short time later at 28:15 by George unassisted to take a 2-0 halftime lead.
They continued to pressure York and were rewarded with three unassisted goals in the second half by Jean Zambrano (60:32), Jonas Juozaitis (69:28) and Ifeanyi Nnoham (76:50) to even their record at 8-8-1 this season.
Goalkeeper Michael Murphy posted his first shutout of the season with six saves.
York’s season comes to an end with a 7-12 record. They were led by Andre Adelson with five shot attempts.