RHODE ISLAND OFFICIAL ATHLETIC SITE

WEB

GoRhody.com

Printer-Friendly Format

E-mail this article

Gary Crooks

Men's Soccer Home

RELATED LINKS

• CollegeSports.com Wire

HEADLINES

Puranen and Gargaro Pick Up Atlantic 10 Preseason Honors

Men's Soccer Announces 2009 Schedule

Men's Soccer Wraps Up Spring Season with 2-0 Win over Alums

Rams to Take on Brown, Raise Funds for Grassroot Soccer, Saturday Night

Game will be played at Brown's Stevenson Field at 7 p.m.

Sept. 19, 2008

KINGSTON, R.I. - The Rhode Island men's soccer team travels to Brown University to take on the Bears, Saturday, Sept. 20 at 7 p.m. Numerous events and promotions will take place prior to and during the game to raise funds and awareness for Grassroot Soccer, a global AIDS prevention organization, which teams up with soccer stars to deliver prevention messages to children in the world's most HIV affected countries.

In conjunction with these efforts, players from both Brown and Rhode Island will wear special adidas game jerseys during the match - with the Rams in yellow and the Bears in red. The player jerseys will then be auctioned and raffled off and all money raised will go to Grassroot Soccer.

"We hope those who are in the area will be able to attend, not only to support URI Men's Soccer during this VERY important match but also to help us help the children of these African nations as all proceeds from the game go to Grassroot Soccer," said head coach John O'Connor. "I feel it is a VERY worthwhile cause and one I have close ties to with as two of the founders - Methembe Ndlovu (Bulawayo, Zimbabwe) and Dr. Tommy Clark (Hanover, NH) - are former Dartmouth players from Dartmouth College who played there when I was an assistant coach there from 1990-1995. I also have one of my former players from the University of Chicago, Stuart Phelps, who is in South Africa right now training in preparation for his work with Grassroot Soccer. They have worked hard to bring attention to this global problem and we hope that you will join in supporting this cause."

The Rams (3-2) are fresh off a 1-0 overtime win against Harvard on Wednesday night. After 91+ minutes of scoreless action, junior Gary Crooks (Falkirk, Scotland) fed a pass to Puranen, who split the Harvard defense and beat Crimson goalkeeper Joseph Alexander for the golden-goal and a 1-0 Rhode Island victory. The tally was Puranen's team-leading third goal of the season while Crooks was credited with his third assist. Junior Chris Pennock (Middlesboro, England) earned the win in goal for Rhody, picking up his first shutout of the season.

Brown enters the game with a 2-2-1 record, looking for its first win since recording back-to-back victories over Villanova (2-0 on Sept. 7) and Furman (1-0 on Sept. 12). David Wall leads the squad offensively with four points on a goal and a pair of assists while goalkeeper Jarrett Leech has recorded three shutouts and a 0.00 goals against average in 270:00 minutes of action.

To watch all the action via Brown's live video feed, click here.

To listen in on the action, click here.