ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. – Playing for the Smith-Herr Boot against local rival Elizabethtown, the Franklin & Marshall men's soccer team played the Blue Jays to a scoreless draw under the ETown lights on Wednesday evening. The draw marked the fourth consecutive such result for the Diplomats. The contest will officially go down as a tie on both team's official records, but the teams moved into penalty kicks after regulation time to officially declare a Smith-Herr Boot winner, as the Blue Jays took back the trophy by a 5-3 shootout advantage.

During the shootout, Jake Rosenfeld, Nic Petruso, and Adam Green each scored as the Diplomats answered previous Elizabethtown goals to set the score at three-all after three rounds. The Blue Jays got the first save of the night after going up 4-3 during the fourth rotation before the hosts were able to clinch the PK advantage by making it 5-3 before the Diplomats were able to send their fifth shooter to the penalty spot.

Despite the trophy ending up in Elizabethtown's hands, it was the Diplomats who created the better of the opportunities during regulation time as they maintained an 18-10 advantage in shots. That included more than doubling up the Blue Jays in shots by a 13-6 margin as F&M searched for the game winner during the final 45 minutes of regulation. In the end, seven saves from Elizabethtown's Pedro Miranda kept his sheet clean before he made his biggest save of the night during the penalty kicks.

Nolan Booth was called on to make three saves during his 90 minutes of work as the F&M keeper recorded his second solo shutout of the season while also combining for another in the season-opening victory. Offensively, Thomas Kaplan seemed to create the most action in the attacking third as he took four shots and put two of those attempts on goal. Nathan Schlessinger added three shot attempts, while Jack Borden Oscar Horwitz, and Kole Wintersteen each registered a pair of shot attempts.

Tonight's battle for the Smith-Herr Boot marked the Diplomats' only match of the week as they are slated to return to action at Tylus Field against Alvernia on Wednesday, September 18 at 4:30. That will be the team's final tune up before hosting Haverford on Saturday, September 21 in the Centennial Conference opener.