Keira Kusmaul | staff writer

In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg launched The Facebook, Michael Phelps won eight Olympic medals in Athens and NASA landed two rovers on Mars.

That year was also the last time Duquesne men’s soccer won the A10 regular-season championship outright.

Just 22 years later, the Dukes sit atop the conference once again, with an overall record of 9-5-2 and a conference record of 6-2-0. One of their two conference losses was against La Salle, in a 3-0 match at McCarthy Stadium on Saturday evening.

La Salle first struck in the 19th minute, with a goal from senior forward Kyrese Lynch-Bailey. Charging up the field, Lynch-Bailey dished the ball off to sophomore forward Julius de Vries. De Vries lasered a pass through two defenders to complete the give-and-go, sending Lynch-Bailey into a one-on-one with the goalkeeper. Lynch-Bailey dodged a diving Duquesne goalkeeper Sam Coss and shot the ball into the lower right corner. Coss, caught way outside of the goal area, was unable to recover in time.

With the first goal, Lynch-Bailey’s fifth of the season, La Salle took a lead that they would not relinquish for the rest of the game. Lynch-Bailey scored his second goal of the game at the end of the first half. La Salle was moving up the field with four attackers. Again, Lynch-Bailey initiated a give-and-go, this one inside the penalty area and to Keiji Sugiura, who returned it right back. Lynch-Bailey drove the ball up and over Coss to the top left corner.

Pedro Amadou scored the third goal for La Salle in the second half, unassisted. He stole the ball from the last defender 20 yards out, leaving a clear path to the goal, which he used to bury the ball in the bottom right corner.

Despite not being able to score, the Dukes managed to generate plenty of offensive opportunities, tallying 19 shots, with four of them being on goal. Defensively, they held the Explorers to seven shots total and four on goal.

Duquesne will play La Salle again Friday for the A10 quarterfinal round.

“This is a step along the path, a step along the journey,” said Duquesne Head Coach Chase Brooks told Pittsburgh Soccer Now. “The journey was A to B, B being a A10 Championship. Obviously, the regular season is wonderful, but we know if we want to go to the NCAA tournament this year, we’re probably going to have to win the whole thing, so that’s what we’re gonna do.”

Earlier in the week, the Dukes traveled to State College to face Penn State, a match that Duquesne lost 3-1 Thursday.

Penn State jumped to an early lead, scoring all of its goals in the first half. The third goal was scored by graduate midfielder Grant McIntosh, who played for Duquesne last season. McIntosh scored with three minutes left in the first half, off a free kick taken just outside the penalty arc. His perfectly placed shot soared to the top right corner of the goal, off the crossbar, and in.

The first goal was scored by junior forward Etienne Reck, less than three minutes into the game. Penn State got a corner kick, but Coss punched out the initial shot. The ball bounced around in the box, with no one gaining firm control until Reck executed a bicycle kick to put it in.

Sophomore midfielder Hákon Dagur Matthíasson scored the lone goal for Duquesne in the second half. The Dukes, down a man since the 42nd minute thanks to a red card awarded to redshirt freshman Steel Bayer, earned a penalty kick. After a slight hesitation in his stride, Matthíasson used his right foot to blast his shot to the top left corner, while goalkeeper Justin Ross fell the other way.

Penn State’s second goal came from a series of defensive mistakes by Duquesne. The Dukes were trying to clear it out of their own end, when freshman midfielder Peter Doran knocked the ball away from a defender, sending it spinning back to Coss at the right edge of the penalty area. Coss attempted to dive on the ball, but slid past it, leaving Doran free to dribble it toward the goal and pass to a wide-open Joe Buckley.

The Dukes put up eight shots to Penn State’s 15. Coss made five saves for the Dukes.

Despite falling twice in the final week of the regular season, the Dukes were able to clinch the top seed in the A10 Championships. Duquesne remains undefeated at home, where they will play their A10 quarterfinal match against La Salle and will continue to play as far as the playoff run goes.

Keira Kusmaul can be reached at kusmaulk@duq.edu