RIC blanks PSU men's soccer

The Plymouth State University men's soccer team had their two game winning streak snapped when they lost to Rhode Island College by a score of 1-0 on Saturday, October 10 at Panther Field.

Rhode Island College junior Jose Ruiz would score the only goal on the afternoon when he scored late in the first half of Saturday's game. RIC junior goalkeeper Helder Faustino would not allow a goal on the afternoon while making three saves.

This would be Faustino's second shutout of the year and arguably his most impressive performance in a rematch of last year's Little East Conference Championship game.

PSU first year student and goalie Bjorn Ohlsson had yet another solid performance for the Panthers, making three saves on the day, but the one goal he allowed proved to be too much as PSU saw their two game winning streak snapped while going 2-1 on their three game homestand.

With the loss, PSU is now 7-5 overall and 1-3 in the Little East Conference, while RIC improved to 5-5-2 overall with a 3-1 LEC record in their quest to repeat as LEC champions. The victory moved RIC into a tie for first place in the LEC with Keene State at 3-1 while PSU's loss dropped them into a tie with WestConn at 1-3 for seventh place.RIC did a good job in slowing down PSU's leading goal scorer Semir Mehmedovic and PSU Head Coach Rob Wright believes that was a big reason for PSU going scoreless on the afternoon, "They man-marked Semir with one player and had one and sometimes two following him around," said Wright, "It made things hard for him but he did a really good job of dragging these guys all over the field and pulling them out of position. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get other guys into the gaps that Semir created at the right times."

Although PSU had a rough day on the offensive end, Coach Wright did see some things he liked on the defensive end, "I thought our back line defended very well and the only real defensive lapse was at the free kick where they scored," said Wright, " Other than that, we contained their two forwards very well. Offensively, the quality of our soccer was not good enough and our guys need to take greater care of the ball in the final third."

PSU will look to get back on track when they play on the road against UMass Dartmouth on Saturday, October 17 at 1:00 p.m. before returning home on Wed., Oct. 21 to play Castleton at 4:30pm at Panther Field. RIC will move on to play at Salem State on Wed., Oct. 14 at 6:00pm looking to extend their winning streak to three games.PSU has five more regular season games left to try to position themselves for the LEC Tournament which begins Wed., Nov. 4.