ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Two overtime periods weren't enough to declare a winner as the fourth-seeded St. John Fisher College men's soccer team fell in the final round of penalty kicks to top-seeded Nazareth College on Wednesday afternoon at Golden Flyer Stadium. With the loss, Fisher ended the campaign at 6-7-4 while the Golden Flyers improved to 12-1-3 and will move on to the championship finale for a chance to claim the conference crown.

After feeling each other out over the first nine minutes of play, Nazareth scored the go-ahead tally in the 10th minute after a short pass into the box resulted in a 1-0 edge.

Trailing by a goal to begin the second half, Fisher was stymied on the offensive end of the field as Nazareth's defense allowed just one shot through the 80th minute.  With fewer than 10 minutes remaining in the game, Fisher began to play with a new sense of urgency as Tim Brown sent a shot in that narrowly missed its mark and hit the post.  From there, the Cardinals continued to press on and drew even in the 87th minute when Ben Woolingham centered a ball that Riley Rease headed home to level the game at one goal aside to force extra time.

In the first overtime period, Fisher keeper Jadon Schlierf was challenged with two shots from the home team before the Cardinals were awarded a free kick on the other end of the field just outside of the 18-yard box. With both teams vying for position in front of the goal, Jackson Bishop lined up the shot attempt, but it sailed over the cross bar to keep the game knotted at 1-1.

After 10 scoreless minutes in the first overtime period, Woolingham looked to score his second game-winner of the week in the 107th minute, but Nazareth's goalie was positioned perfectly to make the save.
With 110 minutes in the books and the game still tied, both teams readied for penalty kicks with a spot in the Empire 8 Championship finale on the line.    

The Golden Flyers jumped out to an early lead following the opening round of the session, but Schlierf made a diving save before Rease found the back of the net to even things at 1-1. Nazareth would reclaim the lead in the best-of-five shootout with successive goals, but Matt Gentile kept Fisher's hopes alive with a goal to pull to within one in the fourth round.  Needing a save to stay alive, Fisher was unable to guess correctly as the Golden Flyers delivered a strike into the upper corner of the goal to advance to this weekend's finale.

Schlierf closed out his sophomore season at 6-7-4 as the Gates native made eight saves in all.