Rio men open league play with win

Rio Grande Sports Information
     ST. MARY-OF-THE-WOODS, Ind. - Facundo Rossich netted a goal in each half and the University of Rio Grande notched its first winning streak of the season thanks to a 5-2 victory over St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, Thursday afternoon, in River States Conference men's soccer action at the SMWC Soccer Complex.
     The RedStorm, who won for a second consecutive outing, improved to 3-3-3 overall and 1-0 in RSC play.
     The host Pomeroys dropped to 3-9 overall and 1-2 against league foes with the loss.
     Rossich, a freshman from Buenos Aires, Argentina, got behind the SMWC defense and gathered in a long forward pass from fellow frosh Will Perry (Crewe, England) before rifling a shot past Pomeroy net-minder Harry Jackson into the right side of the goal for a 1-0 Rio lead just 5:55 into the contest.
     The lead grew to 3-0 a little more than 16 minutes later when the RedStorm scored twice in a span of just 10 seconds.
     The first marker was an own goal against the home team, while the second was an unassisted goal by Perry.
     St. Mary-of-the-Woods got on the scoreboard with 17:43 left in the first half when Jacobo Galvez found the back of the net on a penalty kick, but Rossich scored his second goal of the day - off an assist by freshman Matthew Donaldson (Birmingham, England) - to make it 4-1 just over five minutes into the second half.
     The Pomeroys netted another goal just 2-1/2 minutes later when Andoni Ybanez scored off of a dual assist from Marc Valderrama and Jackson to slice the deficit to 4-2, but things remained quiet for the most part from that point on.
     Rio Grande did notch one more marker with 9:16 left to play when sophomore Estevao Goncalves (Sao Paulo, Brazil) scored off of a touch from junior Luke Tinkler (Nottingham, England).
     The RedStorm finished with an 11-5 edge in shots overall and a 7-3 advantage in shots on frame.
     Head coach Scott Morrissey's squad, which was just outside the NAIA Top 25 in the latest coaches' poll, also had all but two of the nine corner kick opportunities in the match.
     Freshman Samy Hamou (Paris, France) had one save in goal for Rio Grande.
     Jackson had two saves in a losing cause for SMWC.
     Rio Grande will continue its weekend road swing on Saturday at Brescia University.