King’s College Men’s Soccer (12-5-1, 4-2) hit the road one last time to Purchase, New York to take on Manhattanville (7-10, 3-3) in their regular season finale. This game is important to the Monarchs, who have a postseason berth locked up for the third straight season but can still slide into the top spot in the conference.
The Monarchs have won five of their last six conference contests and face a formidable foe in the Manhattanville Valiants. The Valiants are competing for the final spot in the Freedom Conference standings and have a tough task ahead in the form of the Monarchs.
King’s has an experienced core leading them into Saturday’s showdown with the Valiants in senior Niall Croke, and juniors Danny Hernandez and Chris Nygren.
Croke, a co-captain, is the focus of the Monarch attack with ten goals on the year. Nygren provides an offensive spark for King’s whether he’s part of the starting eleven or if he’s entering the game as a substitute. He has put the ball past the keeper seven times this year while adding seven assists. Danny Hernandez has added five goals and helped out his teammates by dishing out four assists.
For the Valiants, freshman Robin Schaufele leads the balanced scoring attack with four goals. Jamie Macchia and Jordan Daniel both have three scores for the season. Macchia and Michael Alcaraz lead the squad in assists with three and four, respectively.
The Monarchs face will need to sneak a few behind Freedom Conference Defensive Player of the Week award winner in goalie Willie Sibler. Sibler splits time protecting the goal for Manhattanville with Steve Singson, who sees more of the playing time. Whoever the Valiants put in net on Saturday, the Monarchs will have to find ways to figure out how to get the ball past them.
The game kicks off Saturday at 3:30 p.m. in Purchase, New York at GoValiants.com Field on the campus of Manhattanville College.
Donny Hopkins covers King’s sports for WRKC Digital, follow him on Twitter @HopkinsDonny or email him at DonaldHopkins@Kings.edu