"It's like deja vu all over again." - Yogi Berra

366 days ago, the Lancaster Bible College men's soccer team's season ended when they lost to Philadelphia Biblical on penalty kicks. Monday at Macclesfield Park in Lower Makefield, Pa., the Chargers returned the favor.

Sean Westerlund's goal in the 6th round of penalty kicks sent the Chargers to Florida for the second time in three years, as LBC defeated PBU, 1-0 [4-3 on PK's].

"What a great game," Chargers' Head Coach Tom Ardt said. "Both teams battled and penalty kicks can be a great way to win and a bad way to lose, and fortunately, we were on the good side of that this season."

The first 110 minutes of the game were anything but boring as both teams had chances to score. In the first half, the Crimson Eagles possessed the ball much of the time and had some scoring opportunities.

"Our back line of Jesse Fraser, Andrew Risser and Richard Westerlund was great," Ardt said. "We put Fraser on [Gary] Bruce and Fraser frustrated him all day."

In the second half, LBC began to play better offensively, led by Cory Greiser who made several runs down the wing that kept the PBU defense honest. As regulation turned to overtime, both teams continued to play even soccer.

"We continued to play well into the overtime periods, but just couldn't score," Ardt said.

As expected, much of the drama of the game came from the penalty kicks. Both teams connected on their first two shots, but PBU's third shot was saved by Chargers' goalkeeper Jarrod Bergey. PBU goalkeeper Dave Shaffer returned the favor, saving Lawrence Lartey's shot on the very next try. Gary Bruce took PBU's 4th attempt and Bergey came up huge again, guessing the right direction and saving the shot. Jesse Fraser converted his attempt, and put the Chargers up, 3-2 with just one round left.

PBU converted their chance, tying the score at 3-3. LBC junior Keith Keltner found the game on his foot, but missed just high and sent the penalty kick round into sudden death. Once again, PBU returned the favor as they missed their 6th round attempt and gave LBC junior Sean Westerlund a chance to send the Chargers to Florida.

Westerlund connected and as the ball hit the back of the net, the Chargers ran onto the field, celebrating their second East Region title in the last three years.



"[Jarrod] Bergey had two huge saves for us," Ardt said. "He was locked in and just played very well today."

Ardt said he was proud of how the guys responded the past few weeks of the season to this point.

"We never threw in the towel," Ardt said. "We played a good team today and it's great to see that we have some momentum back in the series."

Ardt, who coached the team to an East Region title in his first season as head coach, said the team is in the process of meeting goals they set in August.

"We wanted to advance in the NEAC playoffs and go to Florida and well, we are 1-for-1 so far, we'll try and take care of the first goal on Tuesday," Ardt said.

Tuesday, the Chargers will play in the first round of the NEAC playoffs against Keuka. The Chargers, seeded 5th, will head to Keuka Park, N.Y. tomorrow morning to take on the 4th seeded Storm at 2:00 p.m.

When the Chargers head to Florida next week for the NCCAA National Tournament, they will be seeded 6th. They will take on 3rd seeded Northland International University on Wednesday, November 9 at 2:30 p.m. Ardt, who graduated from Northland a few years ago said he won't have mixed feelings about the matchup.

"It will be great to see some of those guys and compete against them, but we are going down there to win," Ardt said.

Notes:
-This is the second East Region title for the men's soccer team, with the other coming in 2009.

-With both soccer teams winning East Region titles, they become the 3rd and 4th LBC teams to win region titles in the past 12 months, joining the women's volleyball and men's basketball teams.

-The four game winning streak is the longest since the middle of the 2010 season when they won five straight games.