Juniata College Athletics Starts Season 26-3-1 Overall

By: Laura Chapman
Assistant Sports Information Director
chapmal@juniata.edu • juniatasports.net

HUNTINGDON, Pa. – After three weeks of action in the fall season Juniata College Athletics stands at a staggering 26-3-1 across five sports. Four sports are currently undefeated and sit atop their respective conference standings. The tennis and cross country programs do no record a team record in the fall, but have been competing strongly.

The men’s and women’s tennis teams, whose primary seasons are in the spring, competed in round robin play last weekend and made very strong showings against top caliber programs at the Kenyon College Invitational and the Oberlin Invite, respectively. The men’s and women’s cross country teams most recently competed at the Catholic Invite where the men finished third and the women ran for a strong fifth place.

Football (2-0)
The Eagles opened the 2013 season at home with a monstrous win over Thiel, 41-20. The home crowed at Knox Stadium was treated to an offensive explosion, defensive stands, and a blocked kick, by the Eagles. This is the second consecutive year Juniata football has opened the season with a win.

Juniata made a statement to the rest the Centennial Conference by rolling over Dickinson (37-14) on the road to open league play and start the season 2-0 for the first time since 2002. The Eagles offense was on fire once again producing over 500 yards of total offense. The Juniata defense held the Tomcats to just 27 yards in the first quarter.

Men’s Soccer (5-0-1)
Juniata men’s soccer stands at 5-0-1 on the year and is off to its best start under head coach Dan Dubois. Before this year the best the Eagles had started was 2-0. Juniata won five straight games, with four on the road and three played on artificial turf, compared to the Eagles home field of Winton Hill, which is natural grass. The different field conditions didn’t bother Juniata as they did not surrender a goal until the fourth game of the season.

The Eagles won their home opener over Mount Aloysius 3-0 and then played a brutal match against King’s College that ended in a double-overtime 1-1 draw.

Women’s Soccer (5-0)
The Juniata women’s soccer team opened its 2013 season in dominant fashion with an 8-0 win over Southern Vermont College and has not looked back. Teamwork has been a key to their success this year. Juniata has 16 assists to go along with its 22 goals scored, while opponents have zero assist for their four goals.

The Eagles have outshot their opponents 139-19 and out cornered all opponents 38-8.

Field Hockey (3-3)
The Eagles opened their season with two wins at home before heading on the road where they captured a win over Misericordia. Through the first three games, Juniata scored nine goals and only allowed three. But the Eagles then dropped a crushing 1-0 game to King’s on the road in which the two teams were even in shots and Juniata had the edge in corners.

They are now 3-3 on the season with a two game road trip coming up and are looking to put themselves over .500.

Women’s Volleyball (11-0)
The No. 16 Juniata women’s volleyball team is a perfect 11-0 on the season after winning the Cortland Red Dragon Classic, the ASICS Invitational, and taking three wins in the Wittenberg Fall Classic. The Eagles have dominated their opponents so far this season going 33-4 in sets.

Last weekend Juniata upset No. 10 Wittenberg on its home court in straight sets. The Eagles followed up the bout with the Tigers by knocking off No. 6 Washington-St. Louis, coming back from two sets down to win 3-2.

Football and men’s and women’s soccer are home again this week. Women’s soccer hosts Saint Vincent College in a midweek game Thursday at 5 p.m. On Saturday, football hosts Gettysburg College at 1 p.m. in Knox Stadium, while the men’s soccer team hosts Hood College at the same time on Winton Hill Field.

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