Men's soccer wins two games over weekend
The Owls beat the University of North Texas 5-0 on Saturday and followed with a 1-0 victory over the University of Texas-Arlington on Sunday.
The wins moved their overall record to 3-2 in the Texas Collegiate Soccer League.
The first game saw the Rice offense dominate North Texas with Ben Gumpert, Ruben Rodriquez, Vimy Ha and Randy Westbrook all scoring.
Senior sweeper Neelesh Kenia got into the scoring by forcing the ball up field and finding daylight for his second career goal.
Rice struggled in a 7-0 loss to the University of Texas on Sept. 23 but doubled this season's output in scoring Saturday.
The win was the first victory for junior goalkeeper Todd Konkel.
The Owls pointed to team unity as the deciding factor in the contest.
"When we played UT, we had no team unity," said freshman forward Mike McClintock. "Saturday was the first game that we played together as a team."
The Owls took the momentum into Sunday's contest against the University of Texas-Arlington.
Despite dominating from the outset, the Owls had trouble matching the production of Saturday's game.
Although Texas-Arlington rarely posed any threat, the offense had difficulty scoring despite pressuring throughout most of the contest.
The stalemate was finally broken as Rice maneuvered the ball upfield with a number of one-touch passes.
Left halfback Ha found fifth-year senior Westbrook open in the box.
Westbrook moved forward to score but was fouled hard from behind and given the automatic penalty kick.
"It was a viscous, viscous foul," said Westbrook. "As I approached the ball, Arlington was taunting me and trying to psyche me out, to take me out of my game.
"However, once I realized that there was only a big, fat, immobile goalie in front of me ..., I knew I would have no trouble putting the ball in."
Westbrook shot the ball toward the lower left corner by the keeper, giving Rice the deciding goal.
Westbrook cited the team's focus as the reason for the weekend turnaround.
"It was uplifting," said Westbrook. "We bounced back with high intensity and made improvements."
Rice will attempt to keep this focus into tomorrow's game against Southwest Texas State University at 2 p.m. on the Rice soccer field.
The Owls will follow this with an away game against Baylor University on Sunday in Waco.
This item appeared in the Sports section of the October 6, 1995 issue.
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