The University of Rhode Island men’s soccer team (4-6-1, 1-0-0) defeated Davidson College 2-1 on Saturday night, earning their first home and Atlantic-10 conference win of the season at the URI Soccer Complex.
Rhode Island trailed 1-0 early after Davidson’s Maxi Pragnell finished a pass across the box from teammate Hunter Howard off the crossbar and behind Rhode Island goalkeeper Nils Leifhelm in the 13th minute. The Rams would even up the score before halftime, when freshman midfielder Stavros Zarokostas curled in a corner kick off the head of freshman center back Niklas Middrup for his second goal of the season.
URI would enter the second half with a high level of pressure applied to the Wildcats defense. Junior midfielder Ryan Bailey would help Rhode Island take the 2-1 lead just over two minutes into the second half. Sophomore midfielder Emil Jesman Sunde and junior midfielder Carlo Davids strung a few passes together, before finding Bailey for the eventual game-winning finish.
Rhode Island focused on defending their lead for the remainder of the second half, blocking two Davidson shots inside the box. Leifhelm proved to be a major component, not allowing Davidson to get back into the game, as he saved five shots following Bailey’s goal and had six on the night.
Head coach Gareth Elliott was pleased in with his team, and knows how important it was to get in the win column in the league standings.
“I thought we played well in spells, but after we scored the second goal I thought we dropped off a little bit too much,” Elliott said. “We didn’t really play our style of soccer and had to deal with a lot of pressure from Davidson.”
The win ended a five-game losing streak of one goal or less for URI. This was Ryan Bailey’s fifth game-winner in his six-goal career with the Rams.
“It feels good, me and the team were really down on losing, losing, losing,” Bailey said. “All of the fans have been coming out and we have been disappointing them, but it feels really good getting a positive result at home.”
Rhode Island traveled to Philadelphia to play Saint Joseph’s University Wednesday night (late finish), and they return home Saturday to face La Salle University at 7 p.m.
“Nice to get a win to start off conference play, with the rest of our conference games we just have to dig in and find a way to win,” Elliott said