Box Score AUBURNDALE, FL – Rene Rivera and Jacob Ling-Vannerus scored first-half goals three minutes apart and Georg Michajlov put the game away with a goal in the later stages of the second half as Florida Southern defeated Tampa 3-1 in a game delayed more than two hours by bad weather.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- Rivera gave Florida Southern (4-2, 2-1 Sunshine State Conference) a 1-0 lead with his goal in the 33rd minute. The sophomore forward ended up with the ball a good distance from goal but still turned and fired off a shot from close to 30 yards that ripped the net for his third goal of the season.
- Three minutes later, Christoph Gums worked himself for a shot at close range that was saved by Jake Richards, but the rebound came out to Ling-Vannerus who put it home for a 2-0 Moccasin lead. It was the first goal of the season for Ling-Vannerus, and it came only one minute after he had entered the game as a substitute for Rivera.
- Trailing 2-0 to start the second half, Tampa (2-2-1, 1-1-1) cut the deficit in half when Felipe DeSousa scored his first goal of the season in the 51st minute. The goal came on a quick short corner kick taken by Lewis Sugden.
- The Florida Southern lead went back to two goals in the 77th minute when Michajlov notched his first goal of 2017 after the ball passed through several Moccasins on the way to the junior midfielder.
- Florida Southern out-shot Tampa 15-13, though Tampa had a 5-4 edge in corner kicks.
- Each goalkeeper, Florida Southern's Benny Yusufoglu and Tampa's Jake Richards, made five saves. Yusufoglu's biggest saves came on back-to-back corner kicks in the 57th and 58th minutes with Florida Southern still ahead by only one goal. He handled another difficult chance roughly one minute before Michajlov scored his insurance goal.
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
- With Ling-Vannerus and Michajlov scoring, Florida Southern now has 10 players with a goal this season, one more than the Moccasins had for all of 2016.
- Ling-Vannerus has scored against Tampa two year in a row. He had their only goal last year in a 2-1 loss to the Spartans.
- The Mocs are 3-0-1 against the Spartans in their last four home games.
- The team's 14 goals through the first six games are the most since the Mocs scored 21 in their six games of the 2011 season.
- Saturday night's game had a scheduled start of 7 p.m., but heavy rain and lightning hit the area more than an hour before then, forcing the teams to seek cover.
UP NEXT
Florida Southern travels Wednesday to Melbourne to play a Sunshine State Conference against Florida Tech at 7 p.m.
