Men's College Soccer
Temple University 3, Rider University 0
LAWRENCEVILLE?The short handed Broncs lost to Temple in the rain Friday. “With the numbers we have we're struggling to put a team on the field,” said Rider head coach Russ Fager. “We're in the situation we're in, we have to play with the situation we're in and there is nothing we can do to change it until the guys get healthy.”
Temple (4-3) scored with less than a minute remaining in the first half to break a scoreless tie. “The first half went pretty much the way I expected it to,” Fager said. “We were trying to stay in the game as long as we could. One young man from their team (JT Noone) made a valiant effort to squeeze in between two defenders and beat the keeper to the ball and you have to congratulate him for a great effort.”
The Owls added the insurance goal in the 72nd minute and the final score came in the 77th minute.
Temple out-shot Rider (1-6-2) 15-5, including 11-3 in the second half. “The second half we started with a number of guys out and we lost three more,” Fager said.
Senior Randall Zapolski (Lawrence, N.J./Lawrence) made six saves in the Rider net. “I though Randy had a great game,” Fager said. “Without him today it could have been four, five or six. He made four or five absolutely fantastic saves, two on direct kicks.”
The game was Rider's fourth in nine days, with three of them going overtime.
The Broncs have defeated Temple five times in the 31 meetings (5-24-2), the last time in 2000. Temple defeated Rider 2-1 last season at the Drexel Tournament.
The game featured 40 fouls, 22 against Temple, along with eight yellow cards and a red card.
Rider hosts Saint Joseph's Saturday, October 4. “We have a lot of time off, and a couple of guys are coming around,” Fager said. “It is our last game before the conference starts. We'd like to get everybody healthy. If we can do that I think we can compete with a lot of teams better than we did today.”
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