Oct. 20, 2002
CLEVELAND - Akron scored the game's first four goals and held on down the stretch to defeat Cleveland State 5-3 yesterday afternoon at Krenzler Field. Seniors O.C. Haugen, Matt Milcetich, Adam Musser, Josip Novkovic, John Schaller and Joachim Walker were honored in a pregame ceremony before playing in their final regular season home match.
Akron's Chris Gnandt opened the scoring in the 20th minute when he knocked in a rebound of a shot off the post. The Zips took a 2-0 lead into the locker room thanks to a Ross McKenzie goal in the 37th minute.
Akron extended the margin to 4-0 when Matt Boswell and Kirk Harwat scored just four minutes apart (68th & 72nd minutes). Junior Benny Eck (Ottendorf, Germany/Friedrich-Fischer-Schule) got the Vikings on the board in the 73rd minute with his third goal of the season. Walker (Bay Village, Ohio/Bay) extended his point-scoring streak to five matches (nine points) with an assist on the play.
Harwat then scored again 11 minutes later to put the game out of reach. Musser (Hubbard, Ohio/Hubbard) and sophomore Spencer Lappin (Pepper Pike, Ohio/Orange) registered goals in the game's final three minutes to close out the scoring.
The Zips have now won 11 in a row and 15 of the last 16 over CSU. The last Viking victory in the series came in 1989.
Cleveland State is in action again on Sunday, Oct. 27 when it travels to No. 11 UW-Milwaukee for a 1:00 p.m. EST match. A win over the Panthers would give the Vikings at least a share of the Horizon League regular season title and would clinch the top seed in the upcoming conference tournament.
