OKLAHOMA CITY – The Mid-America Christian men's soccer team renewed its mid-2000s rivalry with Randall in a big way as the Evangels topped the Saints 4-1 on Saturday afternoon at Evangel Field.
Rodrigo Albuquerque and Dominik Tajak tallied a pair of first half scores while Allan Sorato and Simon Van Rheeden added a goal each in the second half to pull away with the win.
In the 17th minute, Albuquerque opened the scoring when Endi Copa launched a deep cross from the left side to the streaking forward down the right side and he fired a well-placed ball just out of the reach of the goalkeeper on the right side of the net, making it a 1-nil MACU advantage.
Ten minutes later, Tajak got involved in the action with his first goal since the season-opener. On the scoring play, Tajak received a cross to the left side of the box and muscled a sliding shot in through the defense, trickling into the net past the fallen goalkeeper, extending the Evangels' edge to two at the 18:33 mark.
A stringent Evangels defense limited Randall to just one off-target shot in the entire first half as they took a 2-nil lead into the halftime break.
It didn't take long for MACU to continue to extend its lead in the second half with a Sorato score in the 50th minute. Taking a long free kick off a foul from 35 yards out, the senior forward launched a shot that appeared was going to soar over the goal but dropped in over the outreached arms of the goalkeeper.
The Saints managed to scratch a goal across in the 66th minute, but the Evangels were quick to respond with a goal of their own in the 68th minute.
On the immediate response, Fabian Forisch found Van Rheeden on the left side of the goal box. The senior forward from the Netherlands was able to muscle a dribble through a tightly contested defense and fire a well-placed shot into the bottom right corner of the goal just inside the post.
The Evangels had a chance to add one more when Sorato was able to break away down the right side, but his open shot bounced just off the inside of the crossbar.
Randall had a good chance to add its second goal of the match with 19:24 left in the half, but Evangels goalkeeper Austen Parker made a fantastic leaping save on a shot high on the goal, forcing the ball to bounce off the crossbar and safely over the MACU goal.
The MACU defense only allowed one other shot for the remainder of the regulation to seal the 4-1 victory.
Mid-America Christian will have one more non-conference match before the start of Sooner Athletic Conference play. The Evangels will host Oklahoma Baptist on Monday, Sept. 23 at 3 p.m. at Evangel Field.
