CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Two first half goals pace Charleston in a 3-2 upset win over the visiting #4 nationally ranked Notre Dame Falcons Wednesday night at Schoenbaum Stadium.

The Golden Eagles would welcome the 9-1 Falcons to Charleston in a rematch of from earlier in the season in which Notre Dame would send UC home with a 3-1 loss. Notre Dame would carry a perfect 6-0 MEC record into the match and would look to secure the conference regular season championship.

UC would strike first this night when Jordan Lavender would feed Augusto Maciel in the 21st minute and "Gus" would power a shot past the Falcon keeper to give the Golden Eagles the early 1-0 advantage.

Nearly seven minutes later the Golden Eagles would earn a PK as UC would attack the goal but get taken down in the box to give Conor Branson an opportunity from the spot. Branson calmly stepped to the ball, took a short approach and easily finished the penalty to take a 2-0 lead.

Notre Dame would get back into the match in the 36th minute when Martin Lange would step up to take a free kick from around 25 yards out and hit a shot over the UC wall of defenders and make its way past UC keeper Fabian Veit. With that score the teams would head into halftime with the Golden Eagles leading 2-1.

The Golden Eagles didn't waste time getting back the goal that let in late in the first period as Jules Gabbiadini would take a Andrew Harrison pass that made its way past the Falcon defense to give Gabbiadini a one-on-one chance with the Notre Dame keeper. Gabbiadini didn't waste his chance, placing a shot in the lower left side netting to give the Golden Eagles a two-goal advantage, 3-1.

The match would turn chippy with continual whistles being blown for fouls, not allowing any rhythm to the match. For the night there would be a total of 34 fouls called, Charleston being whistled for 22 of those calls.


Notre Dame would continue to press and chase the game, creating chances but the Charleston defense was up to each challenge. The Falcons would finally break through in the 89th minute as Veit would commit a mistake that gave Adam Mitchell an easy finish to draw within one goal, 3-2, with less than a minute to play.


Charleston would turn away the last Falcon attempts and leave Schoenbaum Stadium with an upset of the #4 ranked Falcons, 3-2.

UC improves to 7-3-1 overall and 5-1-1 in the MEC. Charleston travels to Shepherd this weekend to face the Rams on Saturday at 3pm. UC won the earlier matchup 3-0 when Shepherd visited Charleston in September.