September 23, 2006 - George Washington 2 Rider 1
September 23, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Men’s College Soccer
George Washington University 2, Rider University 1
LAWRENCEVILLE—If you were late, you missed most of the action.
In a battle between two evenly matched teams, George Washington edged Rider University 2-1 in a non-conference game Saturday afternoon.
With the scored tied at one, Colonial junior forward Thomas Stuber scored his second goal of the game in the 73rd minute from 15 yards out off a pass from sophomore David Leon.
Both teams came out flying in the opening minute of the game as Stuber opened the scoring off a Bronc turnover just 18 seconds in with a shot from five yards out.
Rider (3-4-2) bounced right back, with a goal from sophomore A.J. Parillo (South River) at the 36 second mark of the first half off a pass from sophomore Anthony Gilbert (Jamison, Pa./Central Bucks South). For Parillo it was his first goal of the season and second of his career.
“I’ve seen starts similar but nothing quite like that,” said Rider head coach Russ Fager, who is in his 32nd season. “I’ve never seen a start where they come down and score in the first 18 seconds off the first play and we come right back and score 18 seconds later. That’s rather unusual to see at any level.”
“That was a weird start,” said Parillo. “We didn’t come out ready to play from the opening whistle but we were able to bounce right back. We have to work on being better prepared at the start and at the end of halves because as you saw today, every second counts and we have to play the full 45 minutes each half, not most of it.”
The Colonials had a goal waived off at the end of the first half with Stuber launching a shot from 25 yards out that crossed the goal line just after the horn sounded.
“I think we were very fortunate that the goal was waived off,” Fager added. “The ball didn’t cross the line before the buzzer however, we should not have let them have that kind of opportunity with 10 seconds left, let alone with two seconds remaining.”
George Washington out-shot Rider 15-8.
Bronc senior goalie Daniel Riverso (Williamstown, N.J./Williamstown) made five saves with Colonial goalie Matt Scheer making three saves for the win.
“I think the game was very choppy,” said Fager. “No one could really keep possession of the ball, both teams were playing a lot of long balls and giving the ball away and there really wasn’t anything where we could say we did this or that well, it was just a choppy ugly game. You saw a game where both teams were desperately fighting for a win and I think both teams were going to claw and do what they had to do to get the job done. We had some great chances and didn’t finish and they (George Washington) took advantage of the mistakes that we made and scored the late goal.”
“I think we did a good job for the most part,” Parillo added. “We still have some kinks to work out in practice so we play together more and have more flow to the game.”
Rider hosts Lafayette on Tuesday at 4:00pm.
-RU-
