O'Brian White Nets Hat Trick In No. 2 Men's Soccer's 4-0 Win Over Pittsburgh

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STORRS, Conn. (October 6, 2007) - O'Brian White (Scarborough, Ontario) tallied the first hat trick of his career to lead the second-ranked University of Connecticut men's soccer team over Pittsburgh, 4-0, Saturday night at Joseph J. Morrone Stadium in front of 4,329 fans. With the win, the Huskies improve to 11-1-0 on the season and 5-1-0 in the BIG EAST, while the Panthers fall to 1-8-2 overall and 0-4-1 in the conference.

Ryan Cordeiro (Highland Mills, N.Y.) also scored for the Huskies, while Mike Pezza (Jackson, N.J.) added three assists to his NCAA-leading assist total. In the back, Julius James (Maloney Gardens, Trinidad) and the defense held Pittsburgh to six shots on the night and goalkeeper Josh Ford (Liverpool, N.Y.) tallied a save and made several defensive stops as UConn recorded its eighth shutout of the season.

It took a few minutes for the Huskies to start moving on all cylinders, but once they got the ball moving, there was no looking back. White put up the first goal of the game in the 27th minute off assists from Pezza and Toni Stahl (Tuusula, Finland). Stahl played the ball out to Pezza along the right sideline for him to send a long centering cross into the goal box for White. The junior forward then tucked it in the net off the left post on a header to give UConn the lead.

He stretched the lead to two just under five minutes later off another assist from Pezza. This time, the sophomore midfielder send a perfectly-placed feed into White, who was about six yards out, for him to stuff in the back of the net in the 32nd minute to give UConn the 2-0 lead.

The Huskies matched their first half scoring output from the Canisius game on Aug. 31 with their third goal of night in the 37th minute. Akeem Priestley (Kingston, Jamaica) came up with the ball off the corner kick by Roberto Sgueglia (Schenectady, N.Y.) and passed it out to Cordeiro just north of the penalty area. The senior forward sent a blast from about 19 yards out into the opposite upper 90 to tally his fourth goal of the year and give UConn the 3-0 lead.

Coming out of the intermission with the lead for the seventh time this season, the Huskies continued to push forward. About 15 minutes into the period, early in the 61st minute, White put himself on the board for the third time on the night and the BIG EAST-leading 11th of the year off Pezza's third assist of the game.

Pezza played the ball to Priestley on the UConn side of the midfield. Priestley then played the ball out towards the right side of the box for White to collect and send into the lower left side of the net on a hard grounder from 15 yards out.

This is the highest goal scoring total this season for the Huskies and the most they have scored since last season's 4-3 win over Pittsburgh in the Steel City.

UConn return to action with a mid-week game against Providence on Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. in Morrone Stadium. The Friars are 5-4-1 overall and 2-2-1 in the conference coming off a 2-0 loss to Georgetown Saturday.