Sept. 1, 2009

Final Stats

Contact: Martin Rickman

The Cleveland State men's soccer team kicked off their 2009 season in style, dominating St. Bonaventure to the tune of a 3-0 victory in their home opener at Krenzler Field on Tuesday.

The Vikings were able to use a balanced attack of speed and good ball movement to pressure the Bonnies, leading to consistent shot opportunities the entire match.

Striking early, Josh Williams handled a quick pass from senior Slavisa Ubiparipovic to put the score at 1-0 in the 12th minute. After a stalemate for the rest of the half, the Vikings tacked on another goal after the St. Bonaventure keeper took out Ubiparipovic, leading to a penalty kick score by senior Mitch Boyer.

The team did not allow their offensive approach deter them from playing good defense, as the Vikings cracked down behind highlight reel saves by Nick Harpel, including two straight shots by the Bonnies in the second half.

"We started to tighten in the back on defense after the first goal," head coach Ali Kazemaini said. "Harpel had a very good save to keep the lead at 2-0."

Cleveland State added on their final goal when Ubiparipovic kicked it to freshman Admir Sujljevic who then passed it right to Aaron Adkins for his first career goal.

An overly physical game throughout, the Bonnies had three yellow cards, as collisions were almost as frequent as the Vikings' 15 shots on goal.

"It is always good to win at home for the first game," Kazemaini said, "and this will give us confidence going out to California. We need to take the positives from this game and fine-tune things, but there's still work to do before Saturday."

The team improved to 3-0 over St. Bonaventure during home openers and 8-2-1 overall against the Bonnies. This was also their eighth straight home win overall. Cleveland State will now travel to Irvine, CA for the UC Irvine College Classic and will take on Santa Clara on Sept. 5.