Rio nips Oaks, claims No. 2 seed in RSC tourney

Rio Grande Sports Information
     EVANSVILLE, Ind. - With a first-round postseason bye at stake, the University of Rio Grande and Oakland City University found themselves locked in an old fashioned defensive battle.
     And when the dust finally settled on the regular season finale for the two teams, it was the RedStorm which was left standing.
     Head coach Scott Morrissey's squad scored a goal early in the first half and made it stand up, posting a 1-0 win over the host Mighty Oaks, Saturday afternoon, in River States Conference men's soccer action at the Goebel Soccer Complex.
     Rio Grande moved to 10-4-3 overall and 8-1 in league play, capturing the No. 2 seed in the upcoming RSC Championship in the process.
     The RedStorm will host one of the two semifinal contests in the six-team tournament, next Saturday, at 3:30 p.m., at Evan E. Davis Field.
     Oakland City slipped to 8-9 overall and 7-2 in the RSC and will be the No. 3 seed in the tourney.
     The Mighty Oaks will host sixth-seeded Shawnee State in Wednesday's quarterfinal round, with the winner traveling to Rio Grande for the semifinals.
     Saturday's regular season finale saw the RedStorm and the host Mighty Oaks combine for just 10 shots -five for each team - and only five shots on goal (three for Rio and two for OCU).
     The game's lone score came 16:00 into the match when freshman Facundo Rossich (Buenos Aires, Argentina) found the back of the net for a team-leading 14th time courtesy of a touch by freshman Will Perry (Crewe, England).
     Oakland City failed to manage a scoring chance of its own in the first half, but had its initial opportunity just 46 seconds into the second stanza when Adam Dimba's header was stopped by Rio freshman net-minder Samy Hamou (Paris, France).
     The Oaks' other shot on frame came with just under four minutes to play when Hamou also turned away a shot by Ethan John.
     OCU had two other shots inside the final two minutes, but the first missed high and the other was wide right.
     Jacob Robinson had two saves of his own in the loss for Oakland City.