Sept. 21, 2008

Box Score

Spartanburg, S.C. - USC Upstate gave up two goals in the first half and the deficit was too much to overcome as Furman went on for a 5-0 victory over the Spartans in the Wofford/Nike Classic at Snyder Field.

Upstate fell to 1-5-0 on the year with the loss. The Spartans will travel to Georgia Southern Wednesday for non-conference men's soccer action. Furman improved to 2-4-1 on the year with the win.

Upstate took a blow early on in the match when Philipp Soppa, who was making the first start of his college career, went down with an injury to his face. Soppa and a Furman attacker were battling for the ball in Upstate's box when the Paladin player accidentally kicked Soppa in the face. Soppa was forced to come off of the field and was later taken to the hospital. He was diagnosed with two fractured bones in his face and a concussion. Soppa received his first start in place of Nick Buxton who missed his second straight game with an injury to his right leg.

Furman opened the scoring in the 26th minute when Coleton Henning played a back heal pass to Dane Roberts to create a one-on-one situation with Roberts and Upstate goalkeeper Patrick Regna. Roberts placed a shot to the right of Regna and into the back of the net to give the Paladins a 1-0 lead. The Paladins made it a 2-0 advantage with less than two minutes to play in the half when Caleb Suri played a long through ball that drew Regna off of his line. Curt McDonald gathered the pass and put the shot in the open goal.

"Despite giving up two goals, I thought we played one of the best halves this season," said Upstate head coach Greg Hooks. "Particularly with Nick (Buxton) not being out there and having Philipp go down early, we still played well. We played a lot of people in the second half when it was apparent we were not going to win, particularly after the third goal, and the game got out of hand. But, the final score was not indicative of how we played."

With Furman in control of the game, Hooks went deep into his bench to give some of his bench players experience. Furman capitalized by scoring three goals in the second half for the final margin. Fabien Vorbe scored an unassisted goal in the 64th minute and Patrick Murray added an unassisted goal in the 82nd minute. The Paladins added the fifth goal when Henning scored in the 83rd minute on an assist from Murray.

Timo Foerster and Chris McCoy were named to the all-tournament team at the Wofford/Nike Classic.