Box Score
London, ON – The Gryphons Men's Soccer team earned a 2-2 draw on the road Wednesday night (September 2) at Western.  The Gryphon goals were scored by Ethan Danielli and Jace Kotsopoulos.  With the result, the Gryphons now sit at 1-1-1 on the season.  The Western Mustangs meanwhile picked up their first point of the season and now sit at 0-1-1.

It was all Gryphons early on as they would open the scoring within the opening five minutes of the match.  The Gryphons were able to transition beautifully from the back third to the attacking third all match long, and in just the 4^th minute, it would be fourth year midfielder Ethan Danielli (Guelph, ON) who would give the visitors the lead with a perfectly placed shot from just outside the 18-yard box for his first goal of the 2015-16 campaign.

The Gryphons would double their lead moments later.  First year left winger Youssef Zaghoul (Oakville, ON) played a great cross-field ball to Zachary Rushe (Mississauga, ON).  Rushe would then send a hard, low cross towards rookie forward Jace Kotsopoulos (Burlington, ON) who showed tremendous skill to chip a charging Western keeper for the first regular season goal of his young OUA career.  With the match not yet six minutes old, the Gryphons held a 2-0 lead.

Western would get back into the match in the 59^th minute when a Mustangs corner ended with James O'Callaghan trimming the deficit to 2-1.  In the 81^st minute, another Western set piece would result in another Mustang goal.  This time, it was Western's second year defender Will Barrie (West Vancouver, BC) who actually mis-timed his jump on a header and had the ball ricochet off of his face and in.  It was not pretty, but the Mustangs had tied it up late.  Of the four goals the Gryphons have allowed this season, three have come off of set pieces.

In the 88^th minute, Western came agonizingly close to taking the lead when midfielder Mark Sergeant sent a shot from just outside the 18 off the crossbar.  The game would end in a 2-2 draw.

After the match, Gryphons head coach Keith Mason added "we defended very, very well all match long in open play. To concede both goals off of set pieces is disappointing, but we also know that if we can improve in that area and get that right, we're going to be really strong going forward."  The Gryphons will be in action again on Sunday, September 6 when they travel to Waterloo to take on the Warriors.  Kickoff is set for 3:15pm.

Note:  Rookie Jace Kotsopoulos accounted for three of the Gryphons seven goals during the preseason and now has four goals in eight total matches this season (five preseason, three regular season).