New Jersey City University Athletics

| Box Score 2 TOURNAMENT WEBPAGE
BOX SCORES: NJCU vs. Keystone | Baruch vs. FDU
GAME PROGRAM/NOTES


JERSEY CITY, NJ (NJCUGothicKnights.com) | One major question in the 2012 preseason for the Gothic Knights was how the team would recoup the scoring punch lost when 2011 senior WALTER AVANS (Roselle Park, NJ) graduated with 39 career goals and 89 points. That question has been definitively answered. Sophomore forward RAPHAEL ARAUJO (North Plainfield, NJ/North Plainfield) enjoyed one of the finest offensive days in the 54-year history of New Jersey City University's men's soccer team with a four-goal outburst and scored for the fourth consecutive game to open the campaign as the Gothic Knights blew past Keystone College, 5-2, in the opening round of the 2012 NJCU Liberty Cup held at the Robert L. McNulty Memorial Soccer Field.
 
Araujo became the fifth different player to score four times in a game (accomplished six total times) and eighth Gothic Knight  to notch at least eight points in a game (done 10 times), as he netted NJCU's first two goals in a span of 1:42 early in the second half, before adding a pair of markers in the 55^th and 65^th minutes to stake the Knights to a 5-1 advantage.
 
NJCU (3-1) won its third consecutive game and improves to 10-1 all-time in its own tournament. Keystone falls to 1-2. NJCU leads the all-time series, 3-0 (19-3 goal differential). The second half of the game was played under a threat of severe weather and the final 20 minutes of the contest was contested in a steady and sometimes wind-swept rain storm.
 
The win sets up a true championship game on Sunday in the classic-style tournament. With FDU-Florham downing Baruch College, 4-1 in Saturday's earlier game, the winner of the NJCU-FDU contest on September 9 at 2:30 p.m. will claim the 2012 Liberty Cup. If the game ends in a tie, FDU would win the tournament based on the fewest goals allowed tiebreaker.
 
Also for NJCU, rookie forward ABOUBACAR DIAWARA (Bayonne, NJ/Bayonne) notched his first career goal in the 38^th minute after having an early penalty kick stopped and later hitting a post.
 
Junior defender MOHAMED CONTEH (Trenton, NJ/West Windsor-Plainsboro North) and sophomore midfielder ANDREW LOPES (Union, NJ/Union) each collected assists for the Knights
 
Reserve freshman goalkeeper KEVIN FUENTES (West New York, NJ/Memorial) stopped four shots to improve to 3-0-0 since being called upon to start.
 
Conteh, sophomore defender EDWIN UMANZOR (Linden, NJ/Linden) and freshman CHRISTOPHER SEGOVIA (North Bergen, NJ/Memorial) each played a full 90 minutes in the back to help limit the Giants to seven shots on goal and 10 overall. Umanzor also made a team save in the 84^th minute.
 
Araujo, who scored his fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth goals of the season in the win, becomes the first Gothic Knight to score in four consecutive games since Cristhian Acuna accomplished the feat in 2008. He also becomes the first player in known school history to score at least once in each of the first four games of the season.
 
Keystone received goals in the 24^th and 69^th minutes by junior defender Anthony Michlik (Effort, PA/Pleasant Valley) and freshman defender Jake Younie (Isle of Wight, England/Ryde). Sophomore forward Jonnathan Pineda (East Hampton, NY/East Hampton) and senior forward Ryan Ehrhardt (Lafayette, NJ/Pope John XIII) added assists for the Giants. Junior goalkeeper Dany O'Rourke (Ballinteer Dublin, Ireland/St. Benildas) made five saves.
 
Araujo got the scoring going at 10:29 of the first half. Conteh slipped a thru ball that set Araujo sprinting up the left wing, before he finished a shot to the near right post.
 
Lopes set up the next goal nicely as he beat a defender along the right endline before sending a centering pass that Araujo stuck inside the left post at 12:11. The assist was Lopes' second of the season.
 
Keystone cut the lead in half at 23:29 as Pineda sent a long cross from the right sideline into the middle of the box which Michlik chipped under the crossbar for his first goal of the season.
 
Late in the 26^th minute, Diawara was fouled in the box and awarded a penalty kick but O'Rourke made a nice save diving towards his right. Diawara had another good look at the goal ring off the post at the 33:27 mark off a breakaway pass from senior midfielder NANA KOFI KUSI (Newark, NJ/Kumasi Academy (Ghana), and Kofi Kusi hit the right post less than a minute later. NJCU struck three shots off posts in the win.
 
Finally, Diawara collected his first career goal at the 37:03 mark as he stole the ball from a defender at the top of the box and beat the KC keeper towards the far left post. NJCU led 3-1 at halftime, outshooting the opponents 13-2 in the period.
 
Leading by two, Araujo added an important insurance goal at the 54:15 mark of the second half. He picked off an errant pass from the back right defender for Keystone, drove towards the box, dribbled around the KC keeper who came off his line and rolled a shot into the target from a tough angle along the endline, a few yards to the near left post.
 
Araujo added one more at 64:32. After he was pulled down from behind on a breakaway in the middle of the box, he was awarded a penalty kick and finished his fourth goal of the game into the right of the target before leaving the game with his team up 5-1.
 
Younie accounted for the second goal at the 68:11 mark with a top shelf header off a cross from the right sideline from Ehrhardt. NJCU, which outshot KC 23-10, saw 19 total players see time in the game in the second half as the weather became more and more inclement.
 
Keystone will play Baruch in the opening game of Sunday's Liberty Cup action beginning at 12 p.m. before NJCU and FDU-Florham meet in the final. In the opening game, FDU led 2-1 at halftime before scoring twice in the early stages of the second half, en route to a 4-1 win over Baruch College. The Devils outshot Baruch, 23-11. FDU was flagged for 13 offsides. The Devils are now 5-0  all-time in Liberty Cup games.
 
Senior midfielder Emin Matezic (Bronx, NY/BMCC) scored twice for the Devils, giving FDU a 1-0 lead just 4:28 into the game before adding an insurance marker for a 3-1 lead at the 50:45 juncture.
 
Freshman forward Michael Vinci (Pearl River, NY/Pearl River)'s first career goal in the 27^th minute proved to be the game winner and freshman midfielder AJ Carnevale (Princeton Junction, NJ/West Windsor-Plainsboro North) added his first NCAA score for a 4-1 lead in the 59^th minute. Junior forward Ryan Hurdes (Succasunna, NJ/Roxbury) picked up two assists while senior midfielder Josh Corpuz (Randolph, NJ/Randolph) added one assist.
 
Senior Tim Kirk (Pompton Lakes, NJ/Pompton Lakes) made five saves in 59:25 of action in goal before rookie Andrew D'Angelo (Mahwah, NJ/Mahwah) made two nice stops in the final 30:35.
 
Baruch's goal came at the 26:27 mark—just 11 seconds after FDU's second goal—as freshman forward Oren Kozlowski (Tulsa, Oklahoma/Booker T. Washington) slipped a thru ball that unleashed a breakaway goal from senior forward Vincent Cruz (Torrington, CT/Oliver Wolcott).
 
Sophomore Helder Correia (Carle Place, NY/Carle Place) made two saves in 35:55 of action before being disqualified from the game after picking up a yellow card (18^th minute) and a red card (36^th minute) for using his hands while sliding to thwart a pair of FDU breakaways. Sophomore Peter DiBona (Middle Village, NY/Archbishop Molloy) played the final 54:05 and made six saves with the Bearcats playing a man down.