Nov. 11, 2000
Box Score
Chicago, Ill. - The University of Illinois at Chicago men's soccer team has earned its second straight trip to the NCAA Tournament following a 2-0 victory over Fairleigh Dickinson in NCAA Play-In action this afternoon at Flames Field. UIC, which won the Midwestern Collegiate Conference regular-season and tournament titles again this season, made its first-ever appearance in the "Big Dance" last year.
With the win, the Flames improve to 17-3-2 for the year while their 17 victories match a school record for single-season wins. Fairleigh Dickinson, who earned a spot in the play-in game this afternoon with its Northeast Conference Tournament title, finish the year with a 13-8-1 record.
"It was a beautiful win for us," Head Coach Sasha Begovic said. "It's so special to be going back to the NCAA Tournament. I felt very confident about today's game - like I was last week against UW-Green Bay (in the MCC Tournament Championship game). I knew our boys would play well."
And play well they did. UIC leading scorer Eric Lukin (Orland Park, Ill./Sandburg) turned in a strong performance this afternoon and put the Flames on the board first, at the 22:09 mark. Jay DeMerit (Green Bay, Wis./Bay Port) fed the ball to Ranko Tutulugdzija (Cypress, Calif./Cypress) at the top of the box and then he passed the ball down low to Lukin, who fired a shot just inside the far right post for a 1-0 UIC lead.
Greg Chrisman (Bloomingdale, Ill./Glenbard North) upped the Flames' lead to 2-0 in the 65th minute of the game as he found himself all alone in front of the next and beat FDU goalkeeper Vytas Lenkutis for his fifth goal of the year.
UIC goalkeeper Chris Jamal (Palatine, Ill./Palatine) was superb in goal once again for the Flames en route to his 12th win of the season. For the afternoon, the most valuable player of the MCC Tournament stopped five shots on goal while earning his fourth shutout of the season.
The Flames, who have now won seven straight, which is currently the sixth longest win streak in the country, will find out their first round opponent on Monday, Nov. 13, when the NCAA Tournament pairings are announced at 2:30 p.m.
