The top-ranked Wake Forest men's soccer team stormed to a 5-2 victory over Boston College at sold-out Spry Stadium last night and settled the score for two losses to BC last season.
Fueled by a crowd of nearly 4,000, the Deacons showed off their many weapons and sent eight seniors out on a winning note in their final regular-season home game.
"It's just a good way to go out for us seniors," Lyle Adams said. "They took two from us last year, and it hurt a lot. I wouldn't say it was revenge, but we just wanted go out on top, and it's another step toward all our goals this season."
Sophomore Corben Bone was the offensive star, with three assists and a goal. Cody Arnoux added a goal and an assist, and seniors Sam Cronin, Jamie Franks and Marcus Tracy had a goal each.
The Deacons improved to 15-0-1 and 5-0-1 in the ACC. The Eagles, 2-1 winners over the Deacons in the title game of last season's ACC Tournament, fell to 7-5-2 and 3-3 in the ACC.
Wake Forest's eight seniors make up the most successful class in school history, with a career record of 68-13-9, one ACC regular-season title and the program's only national championship. Their goals this year include ACC regular-season and tournament titles and another national championship.
"We have not won an ACC Tournament, and they took that away from us last year," Adams said of the Eagles. "We talked about that in the locker room beforehand, because they took us out of the regular-season title and the ACC title last year."
The Deacons wasted little time getting started and scored on their first shot, with Arnoux breaking free and knocking in a short pass from Bone at 3:18. Bone, who leads the ACC in assists with a single-season school-record 15, added to his total at 24:27, feeding Cronin on the left side. Cronin, who was making his 90th career start, blasted a left-footed shot shin high from 26 yards.
Bone and Zack Schilawski teamed on a breakaway at 36:33, with Bone tapping a shot past goalie Chris Brown, who had allowed just 12 goals in 13 games before last night.
Boston College closed to 3-1 when Alejandro Bedoya put a 15-yard shot past a diving Akira Fitzgerald, who had three nice saves in the first half and four for the game, against eight shots.
Coach Jay Vidovich of Wake Forest said he didn't have to say much to his team about last season's losses to BC.
"I'm so proud of them that they got this result," Vidovich said. "But it's just the way they do things, and they are great kids, and I'm glad we won like this for that senior class. I'm getting sad already thinking about them gone."
The Deacons kept up their pressure in the second half and made it 4-1 when Franks scored from about 18 yards, off another assist by Bone. Shawn Shin scored to pull BC to 4-2 with 36:09 left in the match, but Tracy headed in a rebound, after Brown saved a point-blank shot by Schilawski, to make it 5-2 with 22:34 left.
As the Deacons wind down the regular season, they're looking much like last season's team, but maybe better. Adams said that it's tough to say if this year's team is better, and Bone said: "I don't know; that's a hard question to answer. We are just trying to win another national championship, and if we do that we'll be equal to last year's team."
Vidovich said: "I think we are playing more attacking soccer. We are much more lethal in front of the goal and are finishing off plays and we are more mature and more experienced. But to give up two goals tonight is a cause for concern.
"To say we are better, we have to get the results that the boys got last year."
■ John Dell can be reached at 727-4081 or at jdell@wsjournal.com.
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