Second-Half Spurt Lifts No. 20 West Chester Past Shepherd, 7-1

Box Score

WEST CHESTER, Pa. – Freshman Brett Beaumont registered a hat trick to spark a second-half surge as 20th-ranked West Chester ended its regular-season with a 7-1 victory over visiting Shepherd in a non-league men's soccer match Thursday at Rockwell Field.
 
West Chester (12-3-2) matched its longest winning streak since 1994, extending the run of solid soccer to nine games with the win over Shepherd (2-14-1). The Golden Rams rattled off six unanswered goals in the second half, after the visitors had briefly tied the score at 1-apiece.
 
Beaumont's three consecutive tallies late in the game, finished off with a penalty kick in the 83rd minute, marked the first hat trick of the season by a Golden Rams' booter. He scored all three of his goals over an 11-minute span with less than 20 minutes to play in the game. It turned West Chester's 4-1 advantage into a 7-1 verdict.
 
The Rams' seven goals also marked the most in a game this fall.
 
West Chester scored the lone goal of the first half when Miguel Ross blasted a shot from just inside the penalty area into the upper right-hand corner of the goal in the 21st minute. That is how things stood until Shepherd struck in the 63rd minute to knot things up.
 
However, Shepherd's goal awakened the Golden Rams, who answered with a pair of goals to regain a lead the hosts would not relinquish again. Ross potted his second of the game and 10th of the season 48 seconds after the visitors had tied the score. Then, Brian Schaefer picked up his first career goal 55 seconds after Ross' tally that pushed the lead to 3-1.
 
Senior co-captain Conor Malarney recorded his team-leading 11th goal of the season in the 72nd minute, just 33 seconds before Beaumont started his rampage to close out the contest.
 
Ryan Shultz (10-3-1) made two saves in 78 minutes of action in goal for West Chester. Phil Horan finished off the remaining 12 minutes without the need for any saves. Alex Aleshire (1-11-0) made seven saves for Shepherd in the same amount of time as Shultz. Christian Thomas finished up for the visitors, making one save and allowing just the penalty kick goal.
 
West Chester concludes the 2013 regular season with 12 victories – its most since the 2006 campaign. The Golden Rams witnessed a pair of teammates reach double digits in goals scored for the first time since Ryan Sekkes and Jon McGlone did it in 2003. The Golden Rams are currently ranked third in the most recent NCAA Atlantic Region poll. The top four teams from the region qualify for the NCAA Tournament, which gets under way the weekend of Nov. 16-17. The top two teams in the region will host the next two teams in the second round that weekend.
 
Before the Rams look too far ahead, they will await the outcome of the Mercyhurst-Gannon game on Saturday afternoon in Erie, Pa., to find out if West Chester is the regular-season conference champion, which would bring with it the right to host the PSAC Tournament semifinals Nov. 8-9. A Gannon victory over Mercyhurst would clinch the regular-season title for West Chester. A Mercyhurst win, or tie, on Saturday would give the regular-season crown, and hosting rights, to the Lakers. West Chester cannot finish any lower than second place in the regular-season standings and have already clinched a first-round bye in the conference tournament.
 
The Golden Rams last earned a share of the conference regular-season crown in 2002, but were the second seed in the postseason tournament. West Chester has never entered the PSAC Tournament as the top seed.