Dan Gravlin

The Miners' second game of the weekend against a nationally-ranked team turned into a virtual carbon copy of the first one.

Wisconsin-Parkside got a goal just 24 seconds into play from the nation's leading scorer, Bojan Jovicic, then added two more tallies before halftime and went on to post a 3-0 win over the Miners at the UMR Soccer Field.

Playing on a wet field from the extensive rain over the weekend, the 25th-ranked Rangers got on top right out of the gate when Jovicic made a great individual effort to get through the Miner defense and put a shot past UMR goalkeeper Mike McNamee.

The Rangers, who outshot the Miners 11-5 in the first half, got goals from Louie Kirleis at the 23:21 mark and Mike Schuster with 2:49 remaining in the half to build the three-goal advantage by halftime.

UMR, who dropped its third straight game, had the better of the play after the intermission as it got seven shots on goal (UMR had a 15-7 advantage in overall shots), but was stoned in its scoring attempts by UWP goalkeeper Jamie Lieberman. Lieberman made several great saves in the second half, including one on a header by Alvaro Lopez in which he left his feet to make the stop.

The Miners (4-6, 2-3 Great Lakes Valley Conference) return to play Friday when they host Drury in a 5 p.m. game at the UMR Soccer Field. The Panthers were ranked sixth this week, but played to a tie with Quincy Friday before losing 2-0 Sunday at Southern Illinois Edwardsville.