chorney qualifies for nationals

Men’s Soccer Eliminated in First Round For the second time in three years, the Muhlenberg men’s soccer team suffered a 3-2 loss in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Virginia Wesleyan took control in the first half, outshooting the Mules (12-5) by a 10-3 margin and taking a 2-0 lead into halftime. Muhlenberg cut the gap in half when sophomore Samuel Hayden scored 2:19 into the second half, but the Marlins (17-3) responded just 23 seconds later. The Mules battled back and put pressure on Virginia Wesleyan the last 20 minutes. Three straight corner kicks starting at the 19:30 mark resulted in one shot that was saved by the goalie and another that was saved by a defender. Muhlenberg scored its second goal with 9:19 left, with sophomore Eric Miller notching his team-leading seventh goal of the season, and had a potential game-tying shot go high with 3:30 left. Virginia Wesleyan advances to play host Salisbury, a 10-0 winner against Old Westbury. Click here for box score.

Junior David Chorney of the Muhlenberg men’s cross country team qualified for the NCAA Championships by finishing 14th at the NCAA Mideast Regional, hosted by Muhlenberg at Lehigh University.

The Mule men finished seventh out of 41 teams, matching their regional ranking going into the race and landing in the top 10 for the sixth time in seven years. The women were 12th out of 37 complete teams.

Chorney, who ran in the national meet last year, when the entire Muhlenberg team earned a bid, earned the seventh and final spot among runners not on Haverford and Allegheny, the two teams that earned automatic bids to the NCAA Championships. He is the fourth runner in program history to qualify for the NCAAs individually, and there is a chance he will have some company on the trip to St. Olaf College next weekend. Classmate Timothy Van Syckle earned all-region honors for the second year in a row by finishing 22nd. If Carnegie Mellon and Dickinson, the third and fourth teams at the regional, receive at-large bids to the NCAAs, Van Syckle would get in as the sixth individual from non-qualifying teams.

Senior Sara Gearin also put herself in a position for a potential national bid, coming in 15th. She currently is ninth on the individual qualifying list, but if third-place Johns Hopkins and fourth-place Elizabethtown get invites, Gearin would slide up to seventh.

Both Muhlenberg teams finished ahead of Moravian, the women by two places and the men by 20. Combined with the football win, that gave Muhlenberg a 5-3 lead in the Matte Award Standings heading into the winter season.
Click here for the regional site.