Richard Bland Defeats Visiting Wake Tech (N.C.) 3-1

SOUTH PRINCE GEORGE, Va. -- Sophomores Dusan Stankovic/Belgrade, Serbia and Hussein Osman/Charlottesville, along with freshman Davi Girardi/São Paulo, Brazil, each scored goals to lead Richard Bland College to a 3-1 Region X Conference men's soccer victory past Wake Technical (N.C.) Community College on Thursday afternoon at Statesman Soccer Field.  Freshmen Nikola Aleksic/Belgrade, Serbia and Vandyke Gyau/Alexandria each contributed an assist for the host Statesmen (2-0, 2-0 Region X) against the visiting Eagles (1-2, 1-2 Region X).  Richard Bland will remain home at Statesman Soccer Field with a match against Region X member USC Salkehatchie on Sunday, Sept. 3 at 2 p.m.

"Every conference game is hard," said fourth-year head coach Eduardo de Souza.  "Our team did not play a good first half; perhaps after we went a man down, we started to play with more intelligence.  Uziel (Hernandez) and Hussein (Osman) were key parts of our victory today.  Some players coming in off the bench showed that our team is very versatile and strong.  Now our focus is on USC Salkehatchie this Sunday afternoon."

Richard Bland took a 1-0 lead at the intermission, courtesy of a penalty-kick goal by Stankovic at 25:37, following a foul in the box.  It was the second goal of the season for Stankovic.

Richard Bland allowed a goal by Wake Tech at 63:16, before taking control just minutes later at 71:49 when Girardi scored on a header from a throw-in by Aleksic off the left side.  The Statesmen made it a two-goal contest at 79:03 as Osman collected a nice through-ball from Gyau and beat the Eagles' keeper one-on-one with the finish to the back of the net.  Girardi and Osman each have two goals this fall, as well.

Sophomore Tomás Fonseca/Torres Vedras, Portugal started in front of the net for Richard Bland and played the entire 90 minutes, making three saves while yielding the one goal.

Richard Bland took a narrow 12-11 advantage in shots against Wake Tech, though each team had four attempts on goal.  The Eagles had an 11-2 edge in corner kicks.  Stankovic led the squad with three shots, one on goal, while Girardi and Osman each took two shots, one each on target.

Richard Bland leads the all-time series between the two schools in the sport of men's soccer, 6-3, including five consecutive wins.