Men's College Soccer
Rider University 1, Virginia Military Institute 0
LEXINGTON, VA- Good things come to those who wait.
It took Rider five games to get a win. As a matter of fact, it took Rider five games to get a goal. And in the fifth game it took over 89 minutes to score. "It took a long time to get the win and it took a long time to get the goal," said Rider head coach Russ Fager.
Junior Andrew Cotes (Selden, N.Y./Newfield) scored on a corner kick with just 28 seconds left in the second half to give Rider a victory over host VMI in the Jay Sculley Memorial Tournament, hosted by the VMI. "Thank God," Cotes said. "It was about time. It was a great feeling."
"That's hard to do (score on a corner kick) from the right side with the right foot," Fager said. "He hit a rocket."
"I was trying to give everyone in the box an opportunity," said Cotes, a member of the 2008 MAAC All-Academic team who now has six career goals. "I pretty much hit it as hard as I could and it worked out. That's the first time I ever scored on a corner."
"Cotes took a corner kick, and we had Sal (sophomore Sal Lubrano of Flemington, N.J./Hunterdon Central) on the keeper, making it difficult for him to move, and it deflected off the keeper and went in," said Fager, now in his 35th season as Rider's head coach. "I haven't seen a corner kick go in too often. We're one of those teams right now that is doing things that no one has done."
The corner kick was Rider's fourth of the game, compared to six for the Keydets.
VMI (0-4) out-shot Rider 15-14, including three shots in the final 10 seconds of the game, twice hitting the cross bar. "After we scored they hit the cross bar twice," Fager said. "VMI played a very hard game. They had a great game plan, trying to counter attack us and they did a great job at it."
"After we scored they came right down and hit the cross bar," Cotes remembered. "I thought 'this can't be happening, not now,' but it finally went out of bounds and we finally had a ball bounce our way this season."
"Cotes has played outside mid, outside back, he played all 90 minutes Friday, he played all 90 minutes today, despite being sick the last week," Fager said. "We almost pulled him out with 15 left. It's a good thing we didn't. He gutted it out and was absolutely superb. He did a great job."
Five of Rider's shots were on goal, while VMI had just two shots on goal. "The guys played hard," Fager said. "We've had a bunch of guys sick, so we were struggling today. We had been bringing Titus (sophomore Alex Titus of Cherry Hill, N.J./Cherry Hill East) in off the bench but with players sick we started him today and performed very well."
Titus, Cotes and junior Jim Bradley (Washington Twp., N.J./Washington Township) were named to the All-Tournament team.
Sophomore Christopher Pimentel (Brick, N.J./Brick Memorial) made two saves for his first collegiate shutout. "Chris played very well today," Fager said. "He made a couple of great saves and his distribution of the ball was excellent. He has made such great strides since last year, it is unbelievable."
Freshman Dan Friga (Clifton, N.J./Passaic County Tech) had five of Rider's 14 shots.
Rider travels to Delaware Friday. "I think this could be a turning point," Cotes said. "The first goal, the first win, is always the hardest to get."
Especially when you have to wait.
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