Sept. 25, 2007

Box Score

NEWARK, NJ - Rider's early goal set the tone and its late goal sealed a 3-1 men's soccer win for the visiting Broncs Tuesday night over NJIT on Lubetkin Field.

The visitors struck early when Nico Tramontana took a back pass from Jim Bradley and fired a hard shot into the upper left corner from the top of box at 6:14.

The Broncs added what proved to be the winning goal in the 39th minute when Kevin Juska nodded home a short header off of Lee Tomasso's corner kick, staking Rider to a 2-0 lead the Broncs held into the final 15 minutes of the match.

NJIT, which was applying strong pressure in second-half spurts, got on the board thanks to a penalty kick by Osvaldo Perez at 76:37. Perez was awarded the chance when teammate Erik Magnusson was fouled to the ground when he went up attempting a header less than 10 yards from the goal.

With NJIT playing up looking for the equalizer, Rider finally sealed the deal with 6:51 left in the match. Andrew Cotes, on the doorstep, tucked in a feed from Anthony Gilbert, whose strong run down the left wing and true pass to Cotes made the play.

Rider got five saves in goal from Randall Zapolski, while NJIT's Josh Osit stopped three shots. NJIT outshot the visitors overall, 14-11, while the shots on goal were even. 6-6. The corner kicks were also a standstill at 4-4.

The win for Rider was its fourth in the last five games,

Both teams had chances throughout the game, but Rider was the more efficient side in taking advantage of its opportunities. That efficiency was nothing new for the Broncs, who were outshot, 15-4, but nonetheless defeated George Washington, 2-1, in their previous game last weekend.

NJIT missed out on two terrific scoring chances before it finally got a goal.

Down 1-0, NJIT's Kayo Emojong found Rider Zapolski out of position and shot on goal from 10 yards, only to have defender Mark Ockenhouse block the shot at the last instant and then clear it to outside the penalty area.

With Rider on top, 2-0, the Highlanders had another unlucky sequence in which they got off three close shots in a matter of about 10 seconds, only to be denied each time. Near the end of the 55th minute, Scott Rietze's shot hit the left post. Then Magnusson got off a shot that was deflected by Zapolski. Frank Carr controlled the rebound, but missed just wide on the third shot of the scramble.

Rider had a chance to put the game away in the 71st minute when Tramontana's strong bid for his second goal just missed over the crossbar from about 15 yards out.

The Highlanders closed to within a goal on the penalty kick by Perez, but the Broncs, who maintained their composure against the NJIT pressure, answered with the insurance tally barely seven minutes after the Highlanders had closed the score to 2-1.

NJIT will play its next two contests on the road starting with an Atlantic Soccer Conference match at Philadelphia University on Saturday at 2:30 pm.