Reserves Win

The Swope Park Rangers took care of business today against Missouri State, winning 3-0 over the Missouri Valley team. The Rangers started the game off fast taking the game to the Bears and winning an early corner. Herculez Gomez took the corner which when over the crowd in the middle of the box, bounced once and was met by the head of Abe Thompson who buried his header into the net to give the Rangers the early lead.

After the goal, the Rangers continued to dominate the run of play, but could not get another goal. Missouri State had some moves forward but didn't create any really dangerous chances for Boris Pardo in the Rangers net until late in the half. Late in the half, the Bears finally started to come alive move, and got a corner. The Bears took the corner short, but was broken up by Kevin Souter, who found Thompson on the left hand side. Thompson picked out Jonathan Leathers further up the field. Leathers had time to turn and play a great long ball over the top to Gomez, who was streaking down the wing. Gomez, collected, and played the ball back to an on rushing Graham Zusi, whose shot hit the post. The rebound, though, fell to Thompson, who cooly put the ball away to give the reserves a 2-0 half time lead.

The second half was more of the same, with Missouri State getting a few chances, more in the first half, but still unable to find the net. Meanwhile, the Rangers continued to push and if not for bad luck and the goalkeeper, would have added to their lead. Zusi himself had 2-3 chances to make it 3-0 for the Rangers. They finally got their 3rd late as Kurt Morsink received the ball, dribbled in and beat 2 defenders before cutting back and letting loose a nice shot that sailed into the far post upper 90 giving KC the 3rd goal. Overall it was a much better performance than what I've seen from the team's first two reserve games this year.

Here's the lineup the Rangers used.

Pardo
Leathers - Josh White - McKenzie - Marquess
Morsink
Gomez - Zusi - Souter
Kraus - Thompson

Michael Harrington for Gomez at half time. Austin Williams for Kraus in the second half.