Oct. 19, 2005
Contact: Brian McCann
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Wright State's Josh Grossman scored a pair of goals in an eight-minute span early in the second half as the Raiders broke up a tied match to pull away for a 3-1 win on Wednesday night at Krenzler Field.
"We started off slowly tonight but really got a grip on things in the middle of the first half and controlled the tempo for the last 25 minutes," head coach Pete Curtis said. "Unfortunately, we couldn't capitalize fully on it and only got one goal.
"Nenad Stojkovic showed tonight why we have so much faith in him as a striker. He gave Wright State problems all night long but we just didn't have another striker to match up with him and take advantage of things in the final third of the field," Curtis added.
Grossman's goals -- his third and fourth of the season -- came on nearly identical plays that included long runs down the left side of the field. The first came in the 53rd minute when he took a long pass from Tony Labudovski and broke in alone on Viking goalkeeper Anthony DeMarco, beating him to the far side.
Grossman was at it again at the 58:59 mark when he fielded a pass down the left sideline from Jake Slemker and broke in on goal, again beating DeMarco to the far side.
"We made the same mistake on both goals in the second half. We now have to pick ourselves up and try to eliminate the mental errors that have been causing our problems," Curtis said.
Wright State opened the scoring at the 12:00 mark when Labudovski corralled a loose ball in the box and scored in heavy traffic from five yards out.
Cleveland State came right back to even the match at 1-1 in the final minute of the first half when Kim Kroken's header was deflected off the crossbar by Raider goalie Jason Leuthhold and before he could react to the rebound, Stojkovic finished off the play for his fourth goal of the year.
Stojkovic had another good scoring opportunity in the 23rd minute when his shot from 20 yards out glanced off the cross bar but Leuthhold was able to gather it in before CSU pounced on the rebound.
The loss drops the Vikings to 0-13-1 on the year and 0-6 in Horizon League play. CSU steps out of league play for two straight matches, beginning with Sunday's (Oct. 23) home finale against Valparaiso.
