Wildcats start fast, upend Rio men

Rio Grande Sports Information
     RIO GRANDE, Ohio - Taha Houssni scored one of three first half goals for Indiana Wesleyan University and assisted on another as the Wildcats knocked off the University of Rio Grande, 4-2, in non-conference men's soccer action, Saturday night, at Evan E. Davis Field.
     Indiana Wesleyan, ranked No. 11 in the latest NAIA Top 25 coaches' poll, improved to 5-2-1 with the victory.
     Rio Grande, which was among the teams receiving votes in the same poll, slipped to 1-3-3 with the loss as its winless streak reached six straight outings.
     Houssni assisted on a goal by Mariano Chaves with 34:05 left in the first half, while his brother, Islam Houssni, found the back of the net just over 10 minutes later off of a corner kick by Diego Palma to make it 2-0.
     Houssni scored his goal via a touch from Kai Haskell with 16:27 remaining before the intermission to give the Wildcats a 3-0 advantage.
     That's how things stayed until IWU got its final tally of the night on an unassisted marker by Isaiah Arredondo with 20:41 left in the contest.
     Rio Grande tried to make things interesting late, scoring a pair of goals in a span of 3-1/2 minutes inside the final six minutes of the contest.
     Junior Lucas O'Donnell (Leeds, England) had assists on both scores for the RedStorm - by sophomore Hugo Ferreira (Paris, France) with 5:53 left to play and by junior Tommy Munoz Salazar (San Jose, Costa Rica) with 2:32 remaining.
     Indiana Wesleyan finished with a 14-11 edge in shots overall and an 11-6 cushion in shots on goal, although Rio Grande had eight of the nine corner kick chances in the match.
     The contest did get a bit chippy down the stretch with six of the seven yellow card cautions coming in the final 16 minutes.
     Five of the seven yellow were issued to the RedStorm and Rio Grande was responsible for 16 of the 29 combined fouls on the night.
     Kadin Wolfe stopped four shots in goal for the Wildcats.
     Freshman net-minder Samy Hamou (Paris, France) had seven saves in a losing cause for Rio.
     Rio Grande returns to action next Saturday when it hosts No. 4-ranked University of the Cumberlands (Ky.). Kickoff is set for 4 p.m.