DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - In four previous meetings, the Embry-Riddle Eagles had outscored the Johnson & Wales Wildcats 48-0. The impressive offensive trend continued on Saturday evening as the host Eagles scored seven times against JWU in a shutout victory to move to 4-1 overall and 2-0 in The Sun Conference. Johnson & Wales (7-2, 0-2) couldn't solve the Eagle defense, led by
Nils Carlson as the junior goalkeeper recorded his 15th career shutout by making five saves.
The Blue and Gold got off to a fantastic start less than four minutes into the game when a bad clearance by Johnson & Wales in its penalty area found
Veit Couturier who passed the ball along to
Ally MacDonald and the senior from Inverness, Scotland easily slid his shot by Chris De La Cruz in goal for a 1-0 advantage.
Embry-Riddle didn't wait long to go up by two scores when MacDonald made it a double as a well-timed give-and-go between him and
Nicklas Petersson at the top of the penalty box allowed the defender to slot home his second goal of the night (third of the season) in the eighth minute.
The Wildcats hung tough with the Eagles for the next 25 minutes, but another Scotland product put the hosts up 3-0 when
Alan Vezza buried the ball after
Sigurbergur Elisson crossed it to Couturier in the box and Couturier created some space for Vezza to finish the play for his first goal of the year.
Couturier would score his first non-penalty kick goal just seven minutes later on a beautiful pass from
Marcus Starke, who had just entered the match and made his first touch on the ball. Couturier's goal stretched the lead to 4-0 in favor of the hosts and that score would hold up into the half.
All four of the Eagles' first half shots on frame ended up in the net as Embry-Riddle outshot the Wildcats 11-6 in the period.
Just 48 seconds into the second half the Eagles found themselves up 5-0 when an Elisson pass went over Couturier in the box before Petersson mopped up the ball with a shot into the lower-right corner of the goal, his third tally of the season.
Embry-Riddle controlled the possession throughout the next few minutes and in the 49th minute a Couturier header bounced off the crossbar before Vezza headed the rebound past De La Cruz for a six goal lead for the Eagles.
The final score of the night came off a poor defensive job by the Wildcats when Elisson carried the ball from nearly the half line all the way into the JWU penalty area and fired a shot that was untouched by the Johnson & Wales netminder.
Carlson and the ERAU defense nearly saw their clean sheet wiped out when the Wildcats appeared to score a goal late in the contest, but an offsides call kept the visitors off the scoreboard for the fifth straight season against Embry-Riddle.
Five different Eagles scored and four assisted on goals, led by two goals each from MacDonald and Vezza and a goal and two assists from Couturier and Petersson.
Embry-Riddle hits the road in conference play next week with two trips to Miami, first against the defending regular season champions St. Thomas on Wednesday, Oct. 2 and then to defending tournament champs Florida Memorial on Saturday, Oct. 5. Both games are slated for 4 p.m. starts.
