Box Score
ST. PETERSBURG â€" Florida Southern found its scoring touch again Wednesday night at Eckerd in the type of display the Moccasins hadn’t seen in eight years. Scoring four times in the first 30 minutes, and getting two goals apiece from freshman Corey Mills and senior Luke Jenner, the Mocs rolled to a 5-1 win over the Tritons that gave them their first Sunshine State Conference win of the season.
The five goals were the most for Florida Southern in any match since a 6-2 win over St. Thomas early in the 2011 season, but the Moccasins (3-5, 1-1) hadn’t scored five in a Sunshine State Conference game since beating Florida Tech 6-1 on September 21, 2005. The Tritons (3-5-2, 1-1) even scored the first goal of the night before the Mocs went on to score four times in the span of 17 minutes to take a 4-1 lead at halftime.
Eckerd scored its goal at the 7:11 mark when Mark Lee re-directed a header at the left post off a free kick from Daniel Lopez. It was the Tritons’ first shot of the match, but before they could take another one, the Moccasins had scored twice, and it was all Florida Southern after that.
The first Moccasin goal came in the 14th minute from sophomore Carlos Rodriguez (Tampa, Fla.), who put his own header on target off a cross from freshman defender Simmule Turner (Southlake, Texas) off the left sideline. It was the second goal of the season for Rodriguez and the first career point for Turner.
It took only 59 seconds for the Mocs to score again, with Mills notching his first of the night. The freshman from Wellington, New Zealand collected a loose ball on the left side of the box and sent one low and hard that Eckerd goalkeeper Toni Virtanen got a hand on but was unable to stop as it landed in the far side of the net for his second goal of the year.
Mills wasn’t finished. Ten minutes after scoring his first one, Mills had his second. The scoring play started with the Mocs again working the left side of the field, and freshman Jonathan Radvogin (Vasteras, Sweden) getting the ball inside to Rodriguez. From there it was laid off for Mills who delivered the Mocs a 3-1 lead.
Jenner made it 4-1 in the 31st minute when he put a front-side header into the net off a corner kick from Adam Hansjons (Upplands Vasby, Sweden). The Mocs nearly went up 5-1 in the 38th minute when Hansjons played a ball forward to Radvogin, but a nice defensive play by Eckerd’s Adam Stephany broke it up before a shot could be taken.
Despite the lopsided halftime score, both teams had an equal number of shots (8) after Eckerd finished the first half strong. They carried that into the second half too with four shots and five corner kicks in the first 20 minutes, but were unable to land any of them. Cole Clingerman (Auburndale, Fla.) made both of his second-half saves during that stretch, including one with his feet on one of the corner kicks. He made six saves in the game overall while facing a total of 13 shots.
Florida Southern ended up taking only one shot of its own in the second half and that came on a penalty kick with 6:23 remaining. Radvogin drew the foul inside the box, and Jenner got the goal, his second of the season and second of the night. It gave the senior midfielder from Preston, England his first career multi-goal game.
Florida Southern will be at home for its next match when it hosts Florida Tech on Saturday at 5 p.m.
