The University of Rhode Island men’s soccer team held their annual Navy versus. Blue intrasquad scrimmage on Saturday, which resulted in a 2-0 win for Navy.
In the 37th minute, third-year forward Brandon Bermingham slotted a through ball to third-year Patrick Gryczewski to get the decisive second goal to wrap up the match. Bermingham was last season’s top goal scorer for the Rams, and continued that form into the spring with an assist on Saturday.
“For me, I really just want to score every game,” Bermingham said. “As a striker that’s what you want to do. Score or assist, hopefully keep doing that in spring and bring it into the fall season.”
While just an intersquad scrimmage, the Navy vs White match allows for players to improve on their fitness for the upcoming season, as well as fight for key spots in the team.
“[The scrimmage] allows players to try new things that you wouldn’t really be able to try in an [Atlantic 10] game or conference game,” Bermingham said. “I think at the minute, there’s just a lot of places up for grabs, so I think it’s one of them where the players find motivation for themselves.”
Head Coach Gareth Elliott agreed, explaining that these spring season matches are vital in preparation for the upcoming fall season, but he insisted there is still room to improve.
“It was a good exercise for us, again we only played 45 minutes,and some guys got some run in after coming back from injury,” Elliott said. “Still a little scrappy, still a little bit like spring soccer, just not as smooth and not as much flow as we’d like. But the intensity was good, they’re competing and working hard, while everyone is working for a spot and trying to prove something.”
The upcoming fall season will be Gareth Elliott’s 12th season as head coach of the Rams’ men’s soccer program, where he will look to rebound after a 2023 season that saw the team finish with a record of 2-4-2 in conference play. The spring season will be key for Elliott and his coaching staff to figure out how to improve.
“You wanna give some of the guys that didn’t get a chance to play a lot before, give them minutes,” Elliott said. “[We’re] also trying to find an identity moving forward, we have a lot of guys in this group that we are planning to have a significant role in the fall. So trying to get them all on the same page and healthy and playing, and if we have a good spring with that it will help us in the fall.”
Third-year Patrick Gryczewski put in a man-of-the-match worthy performance, as he finished the game with two goals and was the lone goal scorer in the match. This was a hot start to the spring season for Gryczewski, who failed to score in 546 minutes of play in the previous fall season.
Some other notable performances from the Navy versus White match include first-year left back Nikos Clarke-Tosczak and fifth-year goalkeeper Edu Rodriguez. Clarke-Tosczak put in an intense display, and was even given a yellow card for a tackle on one of his teammates, making up for it with a key goal-saving tackle late in the match for Navy. Rodriguez ended up finishing the match with four saves.
The URI men’s soccer spring season continues on April 6, where the team travels to Massachusetts to take on Holy Cross.