Koki Nets Third Game Winner to Push Men's Soccer Past Roberts Wesleyan
Box Score ROCHESTER, N.Y. (Sept. 21, 2012) – Senior forward William Koki (Aurora, Colo.) came off the bench to net the game-winner for a third time this season as the Mercy College men's soccer team defeated new East Coast Conference foe Roberts Wesleyan College, 3-2, in double-overtime last night.
Mercy improves to 6-1-2 with the win while Roberts Wesleyan falls to 2-4-0 on the year.
Senior midfielder Ernest Afful (Columbus, Ohio) put Mercy in front early, slotting home a pass from junior forward Ransmond Aboagye (Bronx, N.Y.) in the 16th minute.
The Raiders responded quickly, flipping the lead to 2-1 in their favor with a pair of strikes just minutes later, with the first coming on a close-range effort amid a scrum in the box and the second off a free kick.
Try as they might, the Mavericks could not equalize despite getting off nine shots in the second half alone until the 89th minute, when sophomore midfielder Ryan Flynn (Valley Stream, N.Y.) collected a rebound on a blocked shot and fired it home to force overtime.
The first overtime period was uneventful but for a lone shot on goal by Roberts Wesleyan, which junior goalkeeper Nick Papas (Castleton, N.Y.) stopped for his only save of the evening. It would not even take a full minute into the second overtime for Koki to come up with his ECC-leading eighth goal of the season, running onto a pass from Afful and blasting it by sophomore goalkeeper Michael Scavone (Ontario, Canada) for the win.
Head Coach Chris Smith and the Mavericks will play their first game on Mercy's brand-new, state-of-the-art turf field tomorrow, Sunday, Sept. 23 as they take on NYIT (2-3-1, 0-1-0) at 3:00 p.m.
