Hounds ground Jets

PORTALES — Greyhound soccer coach Jon Fridal would have preferred a second half like Saturday a little earlier in the week. Newman coach Cliff Brown would have preferred never seeing it at all.

A week after Eastern’s women followed a scoreless first half with a four-goal second, the Greyhound men followed suit with all of their tallies after halftime in a 4-2 win over Newman for their second Heartland Conference win of the season.

Lucas Vaz and Gregory Franusic each had a goal and an assist for the Greyhounds (4-3-1, 2-1-1), who were desperately needing some momentum after a lackluster 1-0 defeat Thursday against Rogers State.

Fridal was happy with the second half, but admitted after Thursday’s loss and Saturday’s first half, the feeling was just as much, “And where exactly have you been?”

Saturday marked the sixth time ENMU scored four or more goals in half — the last coming Oct. 8, 2012 in a 5-1 win over Texas-Permian Basin. The team record for a half is six, set in a 9-0 win in 2005 over Colorado Christian.

“Today, we came out a little slow,” Fridal said. “I don’t know if it was the heat or we’re a young team. Fortunately, we picked things up in the second half."

Vaz opened the scoring in what started as a back-and-forth match when he took a pass from Franusic and beat Chase Bowman in the 47th minute. Eight minutes later, Victor Rubio Lopez knotted things up.

Franusic gave the Hounds the lead back when he won a one-on-one battle down the right sideline, and it looked like it might stand until Taylor White scored a goal for the Jets (3-5, 0-4) in the 83rd minute.

The Greyhounds still had a few more tricks in the book, though. Vaz floated a pass that found Marvin Lewin a minute later. Lewin, who had gotten a step on defender Enzo Nalis and blasted the game-winner into the left side of the net.

Ross Dalton came up with a big save a few minutes later, and the Hounds iced it when William Sutton lofted a ball from the left sideline to the box, where Aderi Arthur-Dede headed it in past Bowman.

Brown, in his 31st season with the Jets, didn’t mince words when asked about the second half.

“Poor defense, absolute rubbish,” Brown said. “We were playing with a guy who was hurt. He got beat, we had nobody covering and they scored a goal. We put somebody else in, he got beat. We didn’t have anybody cover, and they scored another goal.”

The Greyhounds head to St. Mary’s Thursday night, then get back into the Heartland season Saturday at Texas A&M-International.