CENTER VALLEY, Pa.  — The Catholic men's soccer team traveled to take on Desales on Saturday afternoon, looking to keep up its winning ways in the early season. The Cardinals took control of the match early to help propel them to a dominant 4-0 victory to advance to 3-0 on the season.

The first goal of the match came early for the Cardinals as Graham Leary scored off a pass in from Carson Shamoo to take a 1-0 lead just over 11 minutes into the action. 29 minutes went by before the next goal would come for Catholic but Azaria Tewodros tallied the second goal to double the Cardinals lead.

Catholic was not done pouring it on in the first 45 minutes as a red card was issued to Jimmy Shensky for the Bulldogs after a foul was committed inside the 18-yard box to set up a penalty kick for the Cardinals just four minutes after the previous goal. Tewodros doubled his goal tally for the day as he stepped up to the spot and buried his shot in the back of the net to send the Cardinals into halftime with a 3-0 advantage. Catholic outshot Desales 14-2 in the first half and did not allow a shot on target.

The final blow was applied by Christian Backich as he was played by Ryan Kuegler and fired home a shot for a fourth Catholic goal to put no doubt in the final outcome. The Bulldogs only mustered one more shot in the second half with the Cardinals continuing to dictate the pace of play to lead to a convincing four-goal victory. Catholic has now scored four goals in each of its last two matches, first time the program has scored 4+ goals in back-to-back games since 2023. 

Tewodros picked up the first multi-goal game of his career in the win and also his first two goals of the season. Backich now leads the teams in points after scoring in the second half and he has now scored in back-to-back contests.

Leary notched the first goal of his career in just his fifth game as a collegiate player and he has played a key role in both of the clean sheets for Catholic so far this season. Shamoo recorded his first career assist on the same goal and Kuegler picked up his second career assist. In total, the Cardinals took 22 more shots than the Bulldogs in the game and put 15 of those on target compared to zero shots on target for their opponents.

Leary along with Corey Magro played the full 90 minutes for Catholic during Saturday's win.

Catholic returns home on Saturday, September 13 to take on No. 4 Washington and Lee. The match will start at 3 pm at Carlini Field.