September 15, 2009

BLANDON’S HAT TRICK LEADS VCU PAST RICHMOND, 4-3
Box Score

RICHMOND, Va. – Virginia Commonwealth University’s Romario Blandon (Tegucigalpa, Honduras) netted his first career hat trick to lead the Rams past cross-town rival University of Richmond, 4-3, in a physical battle at Sports Backers Stadium.

“To get a win tonight is great,” said VCU head coach Tim O’Sullivan.  “It’s never an easy game against Richmond and that was certainly proved true again.”

The physical match featured a combined 25 fouls and 40 shots, four yellow cards and two penalty kicks.

“It always brings out some strange soccer moments and it was really no different,” O’Sullivan said.  “We found a way to get a win and this time of year, you’re just trying to buy more time to get your team to improve every day.”

Owusu Seykere (Suame-Kumasi, Ghana) found a cutting Alberto Fonseca (San Jose, Costa Rica) down the right side in the 16th minute to get the Rams on the board.  Fonseca slid through the Richmond defense and found the net from 10-yards out.

Richmond (2-3-0) answered just before halftime as Kern Gardiner dribbled down the left sideline and sent a pass through the box to Justin Grove, who knotted the score at 1-1 with just 30 seconds remaining in the opening period.

Blandon (right), who has been the Rams’ offensive catalyst through the first four games of the season, put VCU (3-1-0) on top, 2-1, in the 52nd minute with a hook shot off a free kick from 15-yards out, just past the reach of Spiders’ keeper Brock Tomlinson.

Eight minutes later Blandon was tackled by Tomlinson on a breakaway inside the box and was rewarded a penalty kick.  The junior fired a shot past the diving keeper to increase the Rams’ lead to 3-1.

The Spiders answered in the 71st minute with a breakaway of their own.  Houston Oldham got loose, cut through the VCU defense and sent a shot just to the right of keeper Andrew Wells (Richmond, Va.), who made his first collegiate start in the net for the Rams, to pull Richmond within a goal.

Less than a minute later, Seykere recorded his second assist of the night as he found Blandon cutting to the middle of the box to increase the VCU advantage to 4-2.

Gardiner was fouled and awarded a penalty kick in the 77th minute for Richmond, but Wells came up with the save to preserve the Rams’ two-goal cushion.

The pesky Spiders wouldn’t go away as Stephen Chareczko took a pass from Gardiner and found the net from 15-yards out to pull Richmond within 4-3 with less than 10 minutes to play.

“You could say there were moments where it was absolutely brilliant then there were other times where it was not.” O’Sullivan said of VCU’s control of the game.  “It was a mix but I think you have to take away the positives and keep the team feeling good in that regard.  We still have to play with a better brain.  We have moments that are great and we need to build more of those moments together.”

Wells received the starting nod in relief of injured keeper Gabriel Rodriguez (Guatemala City, Guatemala), who suffered a bruised forearm at Seton Hall on Friday.