The Brown Bears, playing their second of a three match homestand, wasted no time in asserting their position of challenging for Best of Rhode Island and another Ivy League Championship.
Forward Brittany Raphino, found the back of the net on a tic-tac-toe play from Kayla Duran and Lexi Quinn, just seven minutes in to the match. It would be Raphino's second goal on the young season and put the Rams on their heels early.
After the match, Raphino talked about how "amazing it was to come out and put away multiple goals, two games in a row, and on our home field where we're always tough to compete against."
They did continue the multiple goal mission as the notched two more before the halftime break on a goal in the 30th minute from Miya Grant-Clavijo and topped by one in the 44th from the freshman Lexi Quinn, her first career goal in the kit for the Bears.
Quinn was shocked during postgame saying "as a freshman on this team I didn't even expect to be playing, let alone find myself in space where I was able to put a good shot on goal." She added, "having the students here and the whole bench, playing at home is just an amazing feeling."
For the Rams, Tali O'Leary broke the clean sheet in the 71st minute with a rocket strike that many people in the stadium and the benches thought actually hit the side netting until the referee pointed to the center of the pitch. There was muted celebration from the players as it seemed many were looking for the Assistant Referee's flag to be signaling a Goal Kick or Offside. However, neither signal was there and so Captain Rebecca D'Anna, who picked up the assist on the goal runs over to give her teammate a hug before the match carries on.
Brown Head Coach Kia McNeil said that she felt the team "scored some great goals tonight and it was great to see (Lexi) Quinn and (Miya) Grant-Clavijo getting on the scoresheet as well." McNeil does feel they need to sure up their backline defense a bit heading into the weekend and thought that they could have walked out with a clean sheet on the night. Rhode Island Head Coach Megan Jessee felt that the Bears "pushed us around a little too much in the first half and we found ourselves in the hole because of it. We played a lot better in the 2nd half and if we played the full 90 like that we could have seen a very different result tonight." When asked about the need to put together a more complete game, Jessee added "We just need to put all the pieces together, attacking, ball possession, defending, scoring and if we can do that for a full 90 then we will get the win we should have by now."
The Brown Bears stay at home for one more match, they will play on Sunday against Oklahoma State. The University of Rhode Island Rams will return home on Sunday to take on the Boston University Terriers.