Short-Handed Eagles Show Heart in Michigan, Fall to #3 Grace Christian

The Emmaus soccer team traveled to Grand Rapids, Michigan on Saturday for a match with #3 ranked Grace Christian University. The Eagles, coming off of back to back conference weekends, were plagued by injury, sickness, and a wedding (technically not a plague…), leaving them minus three starters from the previous year's campaign. Still, the spirited Eagles were ready to put up a fight on a beautiful Fall day with the temperature a comfortable 59 degrees at kickoff.

The Tigers from Grace set the tone early, establishing possession and firing in some dangerous crosses. The Eagle defense, anchored by Senior Jake Taylor (#12) stepped up and made some important clearances. In the 11^th minute, the Grace attack paid off when a miscue in the middle created space for Tobias Jones (#9) to slot a shot into the bottom right corner. Six minutes later, winger Jared Frasnworth (#5) scored the first of three goals when he swallowed up a rebound and tapped it home. In the 24^th minute Fransworth was at it again, once again scoring on a rebound. The Tigers would add one more goal before half to build a comfortable 4-0 lead over the visitors.

The second half was similar to the first in that Tobias Jones got the scoring started for the Tigers in the 53^rd minute, following the first half trend of tapping home a rebound. The remainder of the half saw the Eagles continue to play with heart, but the relentless attack of the Tigers added two more goals to make the final score 7-0.

The Eagles gave up a whopping 53 shots on the match, with Jacob Bauder recording an impressive 24 saves. A number of players recorded minute at new positions, with sophomore Sam Tran (#19) providing important minutes in three different positions.

"I was really proud of the team's effort and spirit all around. They kept attitudes positive and worked really hard. Grace is a very skilled team with a lot of depth and experience. We are still growing and looking to be ready for postseason play. Today was a fun practice for future matches, and Coach Block and I are excited about the ways some of our individual players stepped up today… and the way we played as a team. Once again, this is a group I am thankful to be heading home with!" (Coach Brown)

The Eagles will travel to Upper Michigan next weekend to take on a revamped team from Finlandia University.