Nov. 11, 2005

St. Louis, Missouri - Duquesne University's men's soccer team lost their Atlantic 10 Confernce Chapionship semifinal game to Rhode Island, 2-1, in overtime Friday night at Saint Louis's Robert R. Hermann Stadium.

Duquense broke a second-half scoreless tie when junior Tom Sochacki's(Pittsburgh, PA / Shady Side Academy) 10-yard header caught the net. The score was set up by a free kick from freshman John Strosser (Erie, PA / McDowell) in the 68th minute.

The score remained 1-0 for 13 minutes until Dawid Badecki scored on a penalty kick at 80:48. The scored remained 1-1 through the end of regulation.

Rhode Island gained the victory 91 seconds into the first OT period when Lukasz Tumicz found Jeffrey Gonsalves who hit the back of the net.

URI, the number three seed, gained the semifinal match against #2 Duquesne after beating no. 6 Massachusetts, 2-0, in Thursday's quarterfinal game.

DU's junior goalkeeper Zach Varga (Mountville, PA / Hempfield) and URI's Dean Ruddy each recorded five saves. Rhode Island outshot Duquesne 16-12 with an 8-6 edge in shots on goal.

Duquesne and Rhode Island finished the regular tied with Saint Louis for first place. As a result of the tiebreaker, the Billikens were the top seed. Duquesne was number two via their October 16, 2005 double overtime 1-0 win over the Rams.

URI will play the winner of Friday night's second game between #1 host Saint Louis and number 4 Dayton. The winner will get the league's automatic bid to the 32-team NCAA tournament. Duquesne now awaits next week's NCAA pairings announcement in anticipation of an at-large bid.