Milwaukee Engineering, surging up the HeroSports rankings, faces off this weekend with Benedictine in a showdown of the top two teams in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference. The Raiders and Eagles are both unbeaten in league play.
Milwaukee Engineering was one of HeroSports’s biggest movers this past week, soaring 61 spots to BR-73 in Division III. The Raiders (10-3, 4-0) have several wins this season over higher ranked teams, and have won two straight following Tuesday night’s 3-1 win over non-conference foe Wisconsin-Platteville.
Benedictine at 5-0 in the NACC and MSOE at 4-0, are the last two unbeaten teams in NACC play. BR-112 Dominican currently sits between them in the conference standings with a conference record of 5-1.
Benedictine (6-5-1, 5-0) is coming off its fifth straight win, a 1-0 victory Saturday over BR-250 Concordia in a NACC match. Benedictine Coach Rich Nassif said in his post game remarks, though, that the Eagles were lucky to hold on for the win in what was a lackluster performance. He also said, the team will be forced to turn it up for Milwaukee Engineering.
MSOE … they’ve scored a lot of goals this year, they have a couple of special players.
“MSOE … they’ve scored a lot of goals this year,” Nassif said. “They have a couple of special players.”
One of those would be junior Logan Andryk, who is leading the nation right now in assists with 17, and second on the team in goals with 6. First on the team in goals is his brother, freshman Braden Andryk, tied most goals in the NACC with 9. The older Andryk was last year’s NACC offensive player of the year and led the league with 16 goals and 9 assists on the 2013 season.
But the key is stopping the attack where it starts, with Logan Andryk, Nassif said.
“With them, if you take (Logan Andryk) out of the game, you really give yourself a good chance,” Nassif said.
MSOE Goalkeeper Garrett Farin is statistically best in the NACC right now, allowing just 0.77 goals a game, with just 9 total goals allowed on the year.
Benedictine is led on offense by Nick Kapetanos and Ante Markotic, each with 7 goals, and Edgar Reyes who is the team’s playmaker, with 7 assists.
The Eagles have also had some quality wins this season, including a 2-1 victory over Dominican, the only conference loss for the Stars. Benedictine also notched a 2-0 win over higher ranked UW Platteville this season.
Nassif said Benedictine is looking forward to the match as a key guidepost for where the side is heading into the final weeks of the season.
“I really feel that we have a back line and a team defense and an attack that should allow us to put up multiple goals every game and get shut-outs,” Nassif said, “So that will be a very good test for us heading into the homestretch.”
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