September 26, 2009

MARS HILL, N.C. - Rury Caulfield scored the first hat trick of his college career as Mars Hill dropped Newberry on Saturday at Meares Stadium by a score of 4-2. The Lions improve to 2-5-2 overall, 1-1-1 in the South Atlantic Conference. Newberry falls to 1-7-1 overall, 0-2 in the SAC.

Newberry struck first 9:41 into the game to take a 1-0 lead. Adrian Ochoa (East Point, Ga.) struck the ball from 15 yards out past Alex Huckabee (Kernersville, N.C.).

Caulfield, a native of Glasgow, Scotland, scored his first goal of the game and evened the match in the eleventh minute. His goal came on a direct kick from 24 yards out following the ejection of Marvin Torvic (French Guiana) for illegally preventing a goal-scoring opportunity by Giovanni Malnati (Guayaquil, Ecuador).

Newberry again grabbed the lead at the 41:07 mark. Ben Mottel (North Augusta, S.C.) converted a penalty kick after Gary Bajkowsky (Dunedin, Fla.) was given a yellow card inside the box for taking down Mottel.

Despite being a man down, Newberry took a 2-1 lead into halftime.

Caulfield answered for the Lions 2:14 into the second half on an indirect kick. Cody Langley (Longview, Texas) tapped the ball to Caulfield from 20 yards out who blasted it past Joel Johnson (Sangre Grande, Trinidad & Tobago) to knot the game at 2-2.

Caulfield again beat Johnson at the 60:46 mark to give Mars Hill its first lead of the day. Kenny Wallace (Glasgow, Scotland) sent an arcing feed to Caulfield who put the ball into the left side of the net from eight yards out.

The Lions added an insurance goal at the 67:17 point. Steven Bivens (Douglasville, Ga.) got in on the scoring when he followed a Brandon Tardioli (Ottawa, Canada) shot that was blocked by Johnson. Johnson was unable to coral the ball and Bivens placed it in the top left corner of the goal to conclude the scoring for both teams in the game.

Mars Hill outshot Newberry 23-16. Huckabee made eight saves for the Lions. Johnson recorded nine saves for Newberry.

In all, a total of five yellow and two red cards were issued to both teams. Both red cards were issued to Newberry players, and Mars Hill played for approximately 30 minutes of the second half with a two-man advantage.

The Lions will travel to Brevard on Wednesday. The game is set to begin at 4 p.m.

Boxscore...

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