October 1, 2012

Dear Alumni & Friends,


Believe it or not we’ve reachedthe mid-point of the season, completing the non-conference portion of our schedule. So, that means that Atlantic 10 play is right around the corner. The boy’s are excited about it as the first half of the season did not play out the way we all wanted. But it has taught us some lessons and showed as the areas we need to continue to work on in order to put us in the best position in the A-10.

Saturday night we travelled to Fairfield University for a single game before taking on the A-10. We came out of the gate very well with crisp passing and excellent movement off the ball. Thomas Lindroos (Espoo, Finland) was on his game and we got some great attacking play from the midfield of Matt Sykes (Sheffield, England), Matt Ribbens (Tinley Park, IL) and Michael Casey (Wakefield, RI) who was a target of some hard tackles. The Stags were a big team and playing fairly direct but our guy’s competed and the second ball was ours for most of the half. Mikey Welsh (Dalgety Bay, Scotland), who had his best match since coming bak from injury, and iron man Robbie Gargaro (Naperville, IL) thwarted what chances Fairfield had with excellent tactical play. Although I felt as though we had momentum as the first half ticked down, neither team was able to get on the board.

The second half began and Fairfield was now the aggressor. In retrospect it was a shame there had to be half-time as didn’t take long for Staggs to get on the board in the 51st minute. We began to push the pace again but as it can happen in games you are chasing, you can expose yourself and the home team capitalized putting an insurance goal on the board in the 74th minute. In the end we just didn’t have enough in our locker to overcome the deficit and a disappointing 2-0 loss.

It has been a difficult stretch as you can imagine but the boy’s continue to work hard and develop as the season progresses. We knew the first part of the schedule would be tough and frankly we all expected better. We are excited the Atlantic 10 season is upon us as this has always been what we have been preparing for since last fall.

After a recovery session yesterday and day off today we will be back at in preparation for the opening A-10 game versus our New England rivals University of Massachusetts on Saturday October 6th at 7:00 pm here at the URI Soccer complex. We have been the road warriors in the first half of the season with only 2 home games so we welcome playing 5 of our last 9 matches at our friendly confines here in Kingston.

At the UMass game we will be welcoming the Exeter-West Greenwich Youth Soccer program as our special guests. It is also our 6th Annual Grassroot Soccer fundraiser night too. As many of you already know Grassroot Soccer  is a global aids education organization that uses soccer to get the message of HIV/Aids to the youth of African countries like Zimbabwe, South Africa and Zambia. Over the past 5 years we have raised close to $8,000 through donations at the gate and in the stands during the game. So, I hope you can join us or if you can’t you will donate to this very worthy cause.

Don’t forget HOMECOMING WEEKEND 2012, October 26th – 28th. It’s a jam-packed three days of A-10 Soccer (Friday vs. Duquesne @7 pm, Sunday vs. St. Bonaventure @ 1 pm) as well as a Alumni vs. Alumni small sided game and pre-football game luncheon. More details will follow but make sure you get it on your calendar. Hope to see you all then…

GO RAMS!
Coach O’C