KENOSHA, Wis. – The Carthage College men's soccer team opened their 2015 home slate in impressive fashion, with a 3-1 victory over the Olivet College Comets, Tuesday night at Art Keller Field.
 
Carthage (3-1-0) netted two first half goals by Johnny Rimkus and Ivan Chavez, and added on a second half goal by Austin Bitta, to give Carthage a 3-0 lead that the Red Men would take late into the match.
 
"I thought today might be a trap game," said head coach Steve Domin.  "They are a solid side in search of their first victory after dropping two games on the road to historically nationally ranked teams on penalties."
 
Rimkus opened the scoring in the 39th minute converting on a scrum at the top of the six-yard box created by Sahr Mahoney and Zach Schoffstall.
 
A Zach Schoffstall deep cross from the left wing to the back of the six-yard box led to the Red Men's second goal, as Giles Phillips beat the Olivet goalkeeper to a high ball, heading it out of the 18-yard box to Ivan Chavez who cracked a shot from 25 yards out to the upper-third of the goal, to double Carthage's ead in the 44th minute, just before the halftime horn.
 
"Zach Schoffstall had a very nice game and involved on essentially every goal.  Ivan is often fun to watch create, and it was nice to get Giles back in the line-up," noted Domin on the performance of the substitute.
 
Austin Bitta closed-out the goal-scoring for the Red Men, rising high for a Jamie Tausend long throw-in, to head it past the goalkeeper inside of the near post from the front of the six 14 miuntes into the second half.
 
"I feel our energy was right but our precision wasn't," sighted Steve Domin.  "We did get some nice combinations which led to some attractive goals, but need to play the entire 90 minutes"
 
Olivet (0-4-0) cut the deficit to 3-1 in the 81st minute on their final shot against starting goalkeeper, Evan Bott.  But the Comets were unable to cut more into the lead as freshman as Niko Mavrogiannis turned away the only shot he faced on target in his Carthage debut.
 
Bott finished the night with only two saves thanks in large part to his starting back four, consisting of Tausend, Jovanni Anzaldi, Filip Dyminski and Jake Bukiri.  The Carthage back line stymied the Olivet attack all night, only allowing Olivet to get off seven total shots.
 
Carthage will look to put together a complete 90 minutes when they return to action on the road this weekend with games Friday and Sunday at the Upper Midwest Classic, playing at Concordia College (Morehead) and UW-Wisconsin respectively.