West Chester at Millersville
Game Details: November 11 I 6 P.M.
Location: Pucillo Field (Millersville, Pa.)
Links: Live Stats I Watch I Tickets
Series: 28-25-5
WCU Links: NEWS I ROSTER I SCHEDULE I STATS
Ville Links: NEWS I ROSTER I SCHEDULE I STATS
Fan Information
Fans making the trip to Millersville on Monday night are advised that tickets are required and must be purchased online via this link. Ticket prices are set at $10 for adults and $5 for students in grades K-12. Students from PSAC Member Institutions with valid, current IDs will be admitted free of charge, as will PSAC Passholders. No complimentary tickets will be available. The PSAC has launched a Championship central page; more information is available here.
For fans unable to make the trip, the match will be live-streamed via this link, and live stats will also be available here.
How They Got Here
Millersville punched its ticket to the PSAC Tournament with a victory over West Chester on Pucillo Field a week ago, scoring a pair of goals in the second half to overcome a halftime deficit after Peter Tichy (Bethlehem, Pa./Freedom) scored on a PK midway through the half. Seeding remained an open question for the Marauders, particularly with West Chester owning a goal-differential tiebreak entering the final day of the regular season on Friday night. Millersville ensured there would be no question of seeding by the end of the night on Friday as the Marauders dispatched PSAC East Regular Season Champion Bloomsburg convincingly (3-0) behind three goals in the middle portion of the match. Danny Gartner gave Millersville a 1-0 lead at the half with the first goal in the 41st minute, and Roy Parkyn doubled this lead in the 55th minute off an assist from Richy Valverde before assisting on a Louis Wright goal just two minutes later to guide the Marauders to the victory.
For West Chester, Friday night’s matchup at East Stroudsburg carried quite a bit of intrigue as well as the Golden Rams knew a win or a draw would get them in and potentially earn a home game, while a loss would bring the 2024 season to its conclusion. Jaden Howard (Townsend, Del./Middletown) was the story for West Chester on Friday night, making three saves, including a season-saving stop on a penalty kick attempt by Ignasi Cucurella Tuset with six-and-a-half minutes to play in regulation. Following this stop, which kept the match scoreless, ESU continued to search for the game-winning goal and nearly found it again in the waning seconds after a diving stop by Howard left an open goal, but the shot sailed high as West Chester escaped with a scoreless draw at ESU.
Flock Talk
With a point in each of the first two meetings against Millersville this season (an assist in the home matchup and the lone goal at Millersville in late October), Peter Tichy (Bethlehem, Pa./Freedom) leads the team in scoring with five goals and five assists for 15 points on the year. Maksym Komperda (Whitehall, Pa./Allentown Central Catholic) and Owen Slack (Collegeville, Pa./Perkiomen Valley) are tied for second with five goals and one assist for 11 points each. Tommy Bodenschatz (Royersford, Pa./Spring-Ford) remains fourth in scoring, with three goals and four assists for 10 points on the year.
In goal, Howard has been excellent throughout his first season as a starter, appearing and starting in 13 of 17 games and posting a record of 6-5-2 with six shutouts and a 1.00 goals-against average.
The Series
West Chester holds a slim 28-25-5 lead in the all-time series against Millersville, although the Golden Rams have seen this advantage decrease in recent years as Millersville has won four of the last five meetings. Two of the 56 meetings between the two teams have come in PSAC Championship games since 2018, with the Marauders escaping in both 2018 and 2023. In PSAC Tournament play, West Chester is 0-3-2 against the Marauders, including a Championship game loss a year ago and a Quarterfinal setback on Rockwell Field in 2021.
This season, West Chester and Millersville split the season series again, marking the second year the two rivals have played to a split. In the first meeting on Rockwell Field in early October, Bodenschatz gave West Chester a halftime lead with a late first-half goal before the Golden Rams tacked on two more goals in the 81st and 83rd minutes from Devven Frey (Wyomissing, Pa./Wilson) and Cooper Jackson (Sinking Spring, Pa./Wilson). In the second meeting of the year at Millersville, West Chester was denied its first regular-season sweep of the Marauders since 2021 with a pair of second-half goals from Teague Ferry, which erased a 1-0 halftime lead for the Golden Rams stemming from a PK goal by Tichy in the 23rd minute.
Don’t I Know You
West Chester and Millersville also have some familiar faces, as Marauder goalkeeper Jake Van Voorhees was once a Golden Ram, while Golden Rams Devven Frey (Wyomissing, Pa./Wilson) and Christian Vorchheimer (Ambler, Pa./Wissahickon) started their careers as Marauders.
Quarterfinal History
In his 10 PSAC Tournament appearances, head coach Michael Benn has reached the PSAC Championship game twice (2018, 2023) and the PSAC Semifinals on five other occasions (2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019). Under Benn, West Chester has won its way into the Semifinals on four occasions (2013, 2014, 2019, 2023), while it received a bye into the Semis in 2016, 2017, and 2018.
Scouting Millersville
With an overall record of 9-6-2 and a mark of 6-2-2 in league play, Millersville enters the PSAC Tournament riding a four-game unbeaten streak, including a pair of ties vs. ESU and Shepherd and victories over WCU (2-1) and Bloomsburg (3-0). Millersville has not lost a conference game since a two-game losing streak in early October, which saw the Marauders fall to West Chester (3-0) and Bloomsburg (2-1) on the road to open the season series against both of its fellow PSAC East qualifiers.
Valverde is the leading scorer for Millersville with five goals and one assist for 11 points on the season, while Parkyn (3 G/3 A), who scored a goal and added an assist on Friday night, is tied for second with Matias Schmidt (4 G/1 A) with nine points on the year. Jake Van Vorhees improved to 8-3-2 with his seventh shutout of the year last night against Bloomsburg, as the former Golden Ram made five saves to stymie the Husky offense throughout the night.
With a Win
With a win on Monday night, West Chester would advance back to the Semifinals for the second year in a row and would play in the Semifinals at Bloomsburg against Gannon on Friday afternoon at 3 p.m. in a rematch of the 2023 Conference Semifinals.
