Sports
No. 5 Rio Smacks Georgetown College 2-0
By: Kaleb Carter
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Lifted up by goals from the feet of Chris Davies and Pau Delagdo-Rodriguez, the Rio Grande RedStorm breezed past the Georgetown College Tigers 2-0.
The visiting Tigers seemed content from the get-go to sit back, pack the middle of the field, and absorb shots and cause deflections. This resulted in Rio Grande controlling possession right from the very beginning of the contest. This fact did not change the rest of the night as Rio attempted 19 shots compared to none for the visitors.
Though goals did not come as often as head coach Scott Morrissey’s squad would have liked, he still saw many positives in the victory.
“I thought our tempo was really good,” Morrissey said. “I thought we passed the ball really well. I thought we created chances, we just didn’t score a lot of goals. But we still got the result. We were very disciplined, we didn’t give away a shot on goal … I was really happy with our performance. “
Even as Rio controlled the ball, the RedStorm found it difficult to put a ball into the back of the net.
Later in the first half as the Tigers continued to clog up the middle, Morrissey had his group employ a different strategy.
“All we did was insert two players in wider areas,” he said, “and then kind of play instead of three in the middle we just went to two because they put so many guys in the middle.”
It was in the 38th minute that this paid off in the form of a Chris Davies goal, which was his first on the season. Davies was quite pleased to finally find the net.
“The field opened up a lot,” said Davies. “There was a lot of pockets all over the field. The coach [Morrissey] just said be patient at halftime and take our chances. We had a load of opportunities on goal, it was just unfortunate we only scored two.”
Pau Delgado-Rodriguez would come through in the 68th minute to put the dagger in for Rio, in what virtually became an insurmountable lead for Georgetown College.
Rio was able to insert more players into the matchup, as guys like Ludovic Delapeyre and Patricio Arce saw extended time on the pitch, while guys like Romaine Terzian (who was adamant about his pizza cravings after the game) and Jon Dodson earned some well-needed rest.
Over the weekend, Rio earned a No. 5. Ranking in the latest NAIA poll. This comes on the heels of a victory over a previously unbeaten Bryan (Tenn.) squad and a strong showing at the Indiana Wesleyan Tournament where they defeated Davenport University and fell to defending National Champions Belhaven University in a close contest.
Most importantly for Rio Wednesday is that it won its first Mid-South Conference game to move to 1-0 in the conference and 5-1 overall. The Tigers fell to 1-4-1. The RedStorm now face a stiff challenge in what has become a yearly matchup of epic proportions. They will head to No. 4 Lindsey Wilson on Saturday for a top-five matchup scheduled for 8 p.m.