Ravens Fly Past Falcons 1-0

Senior midfielder Frantz Francois scored the only goal of the game to lift the Franklin Pierce Ravens past the Bentley Falcons 1-0 in the last regular season home game on October 22.

Francois's goal came in the second half, in the 65th minute, when he flew past a defender and blasted a shot from 15 yards out past Bentley goalie Michael Nikiforov.

"It's your senior year and you just want to give it your all," said Francois. "You come into the game with the mentality that you want to score and give it your all."

The goal was Francois's third of the season which is a career high for the Hatian midfielder. Despite the cold and rainy game conditions, Francois had four of the Ravens 10 shots. Francois believed the cold weather and wet turf field was tough to play in. "I'm from Haiti where it's 90 degrees everyday, but you just have to adapt to whatever the situation is."

In the rainy 90 minute Northeast-10 conference matchup, both teams were quiet in the first half. Francois's energy wore the Falcons defense down. The quick 5-11 midfielder threatened Bentley all game and had two early shots. In the 17th minute, Francois's shot was fired right at Nikiforov who made a catch save. Francois had another opportunity to score in the 23rd minute but his shot missed wide and to the right of the net.

The Ravens out shot the Falcons 10-7 in the game and Ravens Coach Marco Koolman believes the Ravens should have scored more than once.

"We need to do a better job on capitalizing on chances," said Koolman. We were monkeying around too much with the ball and we have to become more efficient with finishing off balls in the goal."

Bentley's best scoring opportunity came in the second half when Ravens freshman goalie Vinny Papageorgiou was out of place and Bently midfielder Chris Lipsett kicked the shot wide right of an open goal.

Papageorgiou made two saves in the game and recorded his sixth shutout of the season.

"It feels good," said Papageorgiou. "I'm making progress but I still have stuff to work on. I just got to take one game at a time. I feel comfortable and I'm not nervous anymore." The Ravens defense made up of senior captain Bisharra Ettienne, sophomore captain Shaliek Dawkins, sophomore Adit Phataraprasit, and freshman Tom Reilly shut down Bentley's offense and held them to seven shots.

Senior captains midfielder Cole Larned and Ettienne played their last regular season game ever at Sodexho Field. Francois is currently a senior at Franklin Pierce, but he still has one more year of soccer eligibility.

"They played tough and they played hard," said Coach Koolman about the senior's performance.

Larned had three shots in the game, while Entienne played stellar defense to help secure the shutout. With the help of Larned and Entienne, the Ravens have now won 8 of their last 10 games.

"We're clicking at the right time, and where winning at the right time," said Larned.

The Ravens finished up their home season, and will not play again at home until the Northeast-10 Conference playoffs. Although they have an overall 11-6-1 record this season, they have been almost unstoppable at home posting a 7-1-1 record at Sodexho Field. Their only home loss came against non conference opponent Dominican on August 30. Franklin Pierce has not lost to a Northeast- 10 conference opponent at home this season; in fact, they have not lost to a Northeast-10 opponent at home in the regular season since 2003.