EAST STROUDSBURG - East Stroudsburg University's men's and women's soccer teams will hit the road for PSAC playoff games this week, with the women traveling to Bloomsburg for a quarterfinal match-up on Tuesday and the men heading to Millersville for their semifinal game on Wednesday.
The men's team is looking for its third straight PSAC title, while the women are aiming for their second straight appearance in the semifinals for the first time in a decade.
The men enter the playoffs as the No. 2 seed in the PSAC East with a 15-5 overall mark and a 8-2 league record. The winner of Wednesday's game at 1 p.m. at Millersville will host the PSAC championship game on Saturday. The Marauders (15-2, 10-0) won both regular season meetings, 4-1 and 2-0.
The Warriors are led by senior forward Roshane Ellison, who is tied for the league lead with 17 goals. A leading candidate for PSAC East Player of the Year honors, Ellison has scored in 12 of the Warriors' 15 victories and tallied seven game-winning goals this year.
Senior midfielder Jason Shegda, one of five returning All-PSAC East players from last season, is tops on the team with seven assists and has added five goals.
Junior Danny Drago has continued to play at an All-American level, starting all 20 games as the team leader in the backfield. Junior goalkeeper Larry Pokrywa has an 11-3 record with seven shutouts and a 0.95 goals against average in 14 games between the pipes.
The Warriors have won 13 of the last 16 PSAC championships and 15 titles overall under longtime coach Jerry Sheska. Sheska became the fifth coach in NCAA Division II history to earn 400 victories with a 2-1 win at West Chester two weeks ago.
The ESU women's team begins its quest for a PSAC title on Tuesday at 1 p.m. in a rematch of last year's quarterfinal game with Bloomsburg, which the Warriors won 1-0. ESU enters the game with a 10-5-3 overall record and a 6-4-2 conference mark, while the Huskies are 13-4-1 and 8-3-1 in the PSAC East.
The Warriors have rallied in the second half of the season behind senior Lynda Hicks and sophomore Lindsay Foder. ESU went 6-1-1 down the stretch in PSAC play to qualify for the playoffs after an 0-3-1 start.
Hicks, this week's PSAC East Player of the Week and a first team All-PSAC East selection last season, leads the team with 15 goals, including seven game-winners.
Foder has seven goals, all in the last nine games, and is tied with senior Jennifer Buckley for the team lead with five assists. Senior goalkeeper Janine Turcio has started all 18 games for the Warriors and has made 71 saves. She has anchored the defense with a 1.10 goals against average and has posted seven shutouts.
The Warriors are led by head coach Rob Berkowitz, the 2007 PSAC East Coach of the Year. Berkowitz has guided his team to the PSAC playoffs in each of his first two seasons, and a win would give ESU its second straight trip to the PSAC semifinals for the first time since 1997 and 1998.
The semifinals and finals will be held on Friday and Saturday at the top remaining seed in the West following Tuesday's quarterfinals. Gannon and Mercyhurst, both newcomers to the PSAC, are the top two seeds.
Along with a host of all-conference players, the Warriors have four ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District II selections, the most in the PSAC. Hicks (3.85 undergraduate GPA, Master's in Management and Leadership), sophomore Kailyn Buckley (4.0, Biology), Drago (3.68, Psychology) and junior Toric Robinson (3.74, Business Management) all represent ESU on this year's squad.
