Seahawks down NEC on Senior Day, 4-0

NEWPORT, R.I. - Senior Ken Johnson (Colonia, N.J.) tallied a goal and an assist to lead the Salve Regina University men's soccer team to a 4-0 win over New England College in The Commonwealth Coast Conference (TCCC) action Saturday afternoon at Brother Michael Reynolds Field.

The win extends the Seahawks (11-3-1, 8-1-1 TCC) win streak to five matches and their shutout streak to 395:48. The Pilgrims, meanwhile, dropped their third-straight match to the Seahawks and were shutout for the second-straight match. Prior to the start of the match, SRU seniors (right) Johnson (#13), Trevor Audet (Duxbury, Vt.) (#19), Jim Dean (Colonia, N.J.) (#11), and Billy Carroll (W. Gilgo Beach, N.Y.) (#9) were honored for their contributions to the men's soccer program.

Junior Sean McAllister (North Arlington, N.J.) opened the scoring with his team-leading 11th of the season 1:13 into the match to give SRU an early 1-0 lead. Classmate Chris Knoth (East Islip, N.Y.) picked up the assist on the marker.

Sophomore Nico Camarda (Burlington, N.J.) doubled the Seahawks lead when he took a feed from Johnson and converted the pass into his eighth marker of the season at 17:39. Less than eight minutes later, Johnson picked up his eighth to give the Seahawks a 3-0 lead after one half of play in which the Seahawks did not allow a shot.

The Seahawks tacked on their fourth and final goal at 62:32 when Carroll picked up his first goal of 2010 and his second point in as many games when he beat NEC senior goalkeeper Pat Harkin (Scituate, R.I.).

"With it being Senior Day, I am always a little bit concerned that my side will get wrapped up in the festivities of the moment and forget that we need to execute come game time," said Salve Regina head coach Craig O'Rourke II. "But this was clearly not the case today as we came out flying and scored just over a minute into the game. From that point forward, we never really let up and just kept going at them. The wind was definitely a factor today and we talked about it in our pre-game. We wanted to make certain that we did not let the elements affect what we were going to do in possession. I thought we did a very good job of not letting the wind dictate what we did when we had the ball. The entire back four was solid throughout the match and what can you say about Billy Carroll that has not already been said. He is simply the finest soccer player in our uniform."

Salve Regina outshot the Pilgrims 17-6 and held a 7-4 edge in corner kicks. Sophomore Devin O'Gorman (Canton, Mass.) got the nod in goal and racked up two saves to earn his sixth shutout of the season. Harkin finished with five saves.

The Seahawks return to action on Wednesday when they host Western New England at 3:30 p.m. The Pilgrims host Colby-Sawyer Wednesday at 3:30 p.m.