Denison sophomore Chris Olson (Arlington Heights, Ill./Rolling Meadows) broke a scoreless tie in the 80th minute of Wednesday's North Coast Athletic Conference semifinal match from Deeds Field-Piper Stadium, and that lone goal would be enough to propel the No. 2 Big Red past No. 3 Kenyon College, and into Saturday's NCAC Tournament Championship.
The Big Red played the Kenyon Lords to a 0-0 tie on Oct. 21, so in all, these two teams played nearly 190 minutes of scoreless soccer before Denison booted in the eventual game winner in tonight's semifinal. In that first outing, the Big Red were outshot 30-6 and senior Kevin Donahue (Riverside, Conn./Greenwich) posted nine saves. Tonight, the Lords again held a decided advantage in shots, outnumbering the Big Red 21-5, and again, it was Donahue who turned in a stellar performance between the pipes.
The senior, who earlier this season became the school's all-time shutout leader, made a dazzling eight saves in the second half to secure the win for the Big Red. Things got particularly interesting for Donahue in the 78th minute when he posted back-to-back diving saves off shot attempts from Felix Hoffmann and Alec Knauss. After the second save, Kenyon was awarded a corner kick which was cleared out by the Big Red.
Off that cleared corner kick, Denison's Tucker Mauke (Simsbury, Conn./West Simsbury) started a breakaway attempt for the Big Red down the left side of the field. Mauke found Lenny Mills (Pittsburgh, Pa./Upper St. Clair) who sent a beautiful one touch pass to Olson who was all alone in the middle of the field. Olson gathered himself and from just inside the 18-yard box, he chipped a shot over the head of Kenyon goalkeeper Jared Kunze, bouncing the ball into the goal on two hops. The goal was Olson's sixth of the season. It also marked just the 16th goal scored against the Lords in 20 matches this season.
Kenyon didn't let up after the DU goal. The Lords would attempt three more shots over the final 10 minutes of play. All three shots resulted in saves by Donahue.
Kenyon held a 15-2 advantage in the shot department in the second half. They also won the corner kick war 7-1 over the course of 90 minutes. Kunze posted one save off a shot attempt by Denison's Ish Ghodbane (St. Louis, Mo./Ladue Horton Watkins) in the first half.
Denison advances to the NCAC Championship on Saturday (Nov. 7) at Ohio Wesleyan University. The match against the unbeaten Battling Bishops will take place at 7 p.m. at Roy Rike Field. This marks Denison's fourth appearance in the NCAC Tournament's championship match. They have one conference tournament championship which came in 2006 following a 3-2 overtime victory over Allegheny.
