Fast start fuels Bears past Rio

Rio Grande Sports Information
     BECKLEY, W.Va. - West Virginia University-Tech scored three first half goals and cruised to a 4-1 over the University of Rio Grande, Thursday night, in River States Conference men's soccer play at the Paul Cline YMCA Soccer Complex.
     The host Golden Bears improved to 11-0-2 overall and 6-0 in the RSC win, becoming the last team to be unbeaten in league play.
     Rio Grande, which had a four-game winning streak snapped, dropped to 5-4-3 overall and 3-1 in the RSC as a result of the loss.
     Julen Recalde scored two goals and assisted on another to lead Tech's winning effort.
     His first score was an unassisted marker which came 14:39 into the contest, while his assist came on a goal by Nicholas Ihnat with 16:59 left in the first half to make it 2-0.
     The Golden Bears added to their advantage yet again on an unassisted goal by Gonzalo Sabeh with 9:49 left before the intermission, while Rio Grande got on the scoreboard with what proved to be its only goal when sophomore Hugo Ferreira (Paris, France) found the back of the net just under 1-1/2 minutes later for his fifth goal of the season.
     That's how things stayed until Recalde sealed the victory with his second goal of the contest - unassisted - with 19:08 left to play.
     Tech got the win despite having less overall shots (12-8), less shots on goal (8-5) and fewer corner kick chances (6-3).
     The match also included 14 fouls against each team and seven yellow card cautions - four against Rio and three to the Golden Bears.
     Luka Felix had seven saves in goal for WVU-Tech.
     Freshman Samy Hamou (Paris, France) had one save in the loss for the RedStorm.
     Rio Grande returns to action on Saturday night when it hosts Midway University at the Newt Oliver Arena.
     Kickoff is set for 6:30 p.m.