FHSU Athletics
HAYS, Kan. — Fort Hays State will play in the GAC Championship Tournament final for the third-straight year after a 4-1 win over Southern Nazarene in the semifinals on Thursday afternoon. The Tigers ran away with a 4-0 lead before the Crimson Storm got on the board in the second half. FHSU moved to 14-2-3 overall, while SNU wrapped its season at 8-8-2 overall.
The Tigers scored one goal in the first half and then poured three on top of it in the first 16 minutes of the second half to build the large lead. Len Valkema opened the scoring in the 32nd minute by intercepting a poor pass back to the keeper and then slotted the ball in with no defense in front of him. More misfortune befell the Crimson Storm in the 51st minute when they had a ball near the box ricochet out to Francesco Valenti who took the ball the length of the field and beat the keeper one-on-one.
Just over five minutes later, Valenti intercepted the ball near midfield and eventually found Valkema with a nice through pass for the third goal of the match. Valkema ran his season goal total up to 11 with his second goal of the contest. In the 61st minute, Daniel Granado provided the final tally off a Juan Linares corner kick, heading home a ball in the box.
Xavier Salisbury scored the lone goal for the Crimson Storm in the 68th minute off a corner kick from Essien Behn.
Payton Roehrich kept SNU scoreless for his 63 minutes of action in goal. Marco Rosa relieved for the final 27 minutes and allowed the one goal, but saved two shots. Roehrich finished with four saves in the match. Ewan Persehaie recorded four saves for SNU, but yielded the four goals. Aimar Aramendia played the final 27 minutes in goal for SNU and made two saves.
The teams were level in shots taken (14) and saves (6). FHSU held a slight 6-4 advantage in corner kicks. The four goals by FHSU was its most for a conference tournament match in program history.
Fort Hays State will take on No. 3 seeded Northeastern State in the championship match on Saturday at noon inside FHSU Soccer Stadium. The RiverHawks claimed a 1-0 win over No. 2 seed Rogers State in the other semifinal match on a goal with 25 seconds remaining.
Fort Hays State Top Performers
Len Valkema – 2 goals, 4 points
Francesco Valenti – 1 goal, 1 assist, Game-winning goal
Payton Roehrich – 4 saves, no goals allowed
Daniel Granado – 1 goal
Juan Linares – 1 assist