Washington, Mich. — A rare Wednesday afternoon kickoff didn't catch the Aquinas men's soccer team napping on Oct. 4 inside the Michigan Stars Sports Center. The Saints (7-2-1, 3-1 WHAC) scored early and often in a 6-1 road victory over the Rochester Warriors (2-5-2, 0-3-1 WHAC).
Aquinas took eight shots in the first half, five of them found the back of the net.
Jai Tahlan opened the floodgates just 120 seconds into the contest after finishing off a ball played in by
Joshua Clemitson.
The WHAC's leading goal scorer,
Ricardo Rittersberger, also became the conference's leading assist provider on Wednesday with three straight helpers in the 7th, 15th and 35th minute with goals coming from
Yussef Hakmaoui,
Fin Pittock and
Jasper Schinkel.
Clemitson also picked up a second assist of the game on Pittock's tally.
Rittersberger now ranks tied for 5th in the NAIA with 29 points this season in 10 games played. That is broken down into 11 goals and seven assists.
A mere 49 seconds after Schinkel scored his third goal of the season, Hakmaoui notched his second goal of the game to give AQ a 5-0 lead after 35 minutes and 25 seconds.
It was Hakmaoui's first multi-goal game as a Saint after joining the team this season as a junior transfer from Jones County Junior College. Freshman newcomer
Fikret Hasovic provided the assist.
AQ senior
Andrea Ghiggini notched an extra insurance goal in the 69th minute from the penalty spot. The Saints are 5-for-5 on penalty kicks this season while not giving up a penalty kick either.
Ghiggini, Hakmaoui and Schinkel each reached three goals on the season with their scoring outputs on Wednesday.
The Aquinas backline was trying to get Saints sophomore goalkeeper
Ivan Radovic his third straight shutout in his third career appearance. But, Rochester had other ideas. Luka Knezevic scored unassisted in the 73rd minute to beat Radovic for the first time.
It was one of three shots on target for the Warriors as Aquinas outshot Rochester 20-14 (13-3 shots on target).
Aquinas now looks ahead to Saturday (Oct. 7) where the Saints will host the UNOH Racers at 3 p.m. from the AQ Athletic Field. Aquinas looks to snap a six-game winless streak UNOH with the Saints' last win coming in 2017.
