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GREENSBORO - The Messiah Monopoly is in no danger of dissolution.

            Just as they did three years ago, the men's and women's
soccer teams of Messiah College won NCAA Division III championships at Bryan
Park on Saturday. The men prevailed in penalty kicks after a 1-1 draw with
Stevens Institute of Technology and the women dispatched Wheaton College 5-0 in
the most lopsided final in the history of that tournament.

            So when the women's game ended and the previously
victorious Falcon men ignored public-address pleas to stay off the field,
nobody really objected. Messiah, a 2,900-student institution located 12 miles
south of Harrisburg, Pa., is the only school at any level to sweep the soccer
titles.

            "You can't ask for anything better than that," said Kacie
Klynstra, who scored once and assisted another tally as her team concluded a
24-0-2 season.

            Greensboro College hosted the event for the third time in
five years.

            The Falcon men became the first group to win six Division
III titles. In so doing, they surpassed UNCG, which claimed the crown five
times in six years of the 1980s before moving to higher classifications. Their
method in getting there was admittedly unconventional.

            Goalkeeper Nick Blossey, who hadn't played in 28 days,
came off the bench to stop all three penalty kicks he faced as the Falcons
withstood the Ducks, who had scored the equalizer with just over 10 minutes
left in regulation.

            "I was glad I wasn't facing my own team," said Blossey, a
senior who waited behind starter Jared Clugston, who hadn't given up a goal in
five NCAA tournament games before Saturday. "We had been training for this kind
of thing. Some people think you can't practice for PKs, but you can."

            The Falcons scored off a free kick in the third minute,
but the Ducks, who hail from Hoboken, N.J., regrouped and forced overtime when
Jeremy Lippel slammed home a rebound with 10:02 left in regulation.

            By that point, Messiah coach Dave Brandt had decided he'd
switch to Blossey, who is especially proficient at educated guesses on
penalty-kick locations, if the two sudden-death, 10-minute overtimes failed to
produce a winner. So the backup went with an assistant coach behind a temporary
trailer and tried his hand at a few warm-ups. Every so often, he peeked around
the trailer and looked at the action of overtime.

When
he swatted away the first two Duck kicks and Messiah converted its first two,
the sixth title was imminent. Blossey made a dive to his right for the third
save, and Nick Thompson scored in the baseball equivalent of the top of the
fourth inning to end it.

"Tough
way to go out," Ducks midfielder Peter Montalvo said, "but making three saves
is pretty big. I don't mind that it went to PKs. There has to be a winner
eventually."

A
half-hour after it had ended, Messiah midfielder Geoff Pezon was still wearing
his short-sleeved jersey and no sweatshirt.
"I'm just so excited, I really don't care," he said.

The
Falcon women broke free from a relatively tight 1-0 game at the half to earn
their second championship. Erin Hench scored the night's first goal and assisted
on  the last as Messiah defeated the
Thunder, the champion in 2006 and '07.

Messiah
outshot Wheaton, which is located 25 miles west of Chicago, 21-7. The Thunder remained
nationally elite while welcoming 13 newcomers to go with 13 returnees, but it
couldn't finish the job.

"We
ran out of gas," Wheaton coach Pete Felske said. "We were physically, mentally
and in pretty much every way done."

Klynstra
and her four fellow seniors started and finished their careers by winning NCAA
championships at Macpherson Stadium.

"I
love Greensboro," she said. "Obviously, there was a lot of talk about coming
back here. We have good memories of here."

Contact
Rob Daniels at 373-7028 or rob.daniels@news-record.com