SOCCER ADVANCES TO REGION X SEMIS WITH 4-0 WIN OVER CAPE FEAR

PETERSBURG, Va., (Oct. 28, 2015) – Exactly one week to the day, the Richard Bland College men's soccer team hosted Cape Fear in a tightly-contested affair that seemed destined for overtime. But on Wednesday afternoon in the quarterfinals of the Region X Championships, the No. 4 seeded Statesmen scored twice in each half and controlled the game from start-to-finish, earning a 4-0 win over the No. 5 seeded Sea Devils at a rain sodden Statesmen Field. 

With the victory, Richard Bland (10-7-2), advances to the Region X semifinals on Saturday afternoon at 5 p.m. against No. 1 nationally-ranked Louisburg College (17-1), a 4-0 victor over the University of South Carolina Lancaster in one of Wednesday's four Region X quarterfinal games. The semifinals and finals will be played at Legion Stadium in Wilmington, N.C. 

The Statesmen were offensive-minded and held a 24-4 advantage in shots while defeating the Sea Devils for the third time this season. 

Richard Bland scored two goals in similar fashion within two minutes of each other, the first by freshman forward Lorenzo Romeo (New York, NY/Stonewall Jackson) and the second by sophomore forward Godfred Baisel (Cape Coast. Ghana/Patriot) at the 17:36 and 19:10 marks respectively. In each case, Cape Fear goalie Connor Belk, who had a superb game with 14 saves, was caught out of position after deflected shots, leaving an abandoned goal. 

Baisel, who added to his his school-record 33 goals, had an easy punch to the net as did Sawyer, whose goal was earned when Belk made a fabulous save off an initial shot, but when he sprawled to the field to corral the ball, saw it leak back to Romeo for the easy tally. 

"It was a good win," said Richard Bland head coach Eduardo de Souza. "I was happy with the performance of the players. Today, with this win, we can truly consider ourselves one of the top four teams in the conference. We possessed and worked the ball better today than we did the last time we played Cape Fear. We were able to score two goals in the first half that gave us a nice advantage. There are no easy games in Region X and Cape Fear is a tough team to defeat." 

The second half, played partly in a steady and driving rain, saw Richard Bland capitalize on two Cape Fear red cards. With a two-player advantage for the final 30 minutes, the Statesmen were able to tack on two insurance goals, another empty net goal when Belk vacated his position by sophomore Leonard Oballa (Nairobi, Kenya/Aquinas) at 67:50 and RBC's fourth by Abdurazac Abdulla (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia/T.C Williams) with four minutes remaining off a pinpoint cross from forward Sebastian Hendi (Buenos Aires, Argentina/T.C. Williams). 

"We are ready for another chance to play the No. 1 ranked team in the country," said de Souza. "We had a great game against them last Sunday (1-0 loss at Louisburg) and we are forunate to have another game to play that allows us to work toward advancing to the finals."