FOND DU LAC, Wis.— The Marian men's soccer team scored three times in the final 17 minutes of the second half to secure a 3-0 victory over Rockford  Saturday afternoon in Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference  play at Smith Field.

At 73:39 Israel Tovar split the Rockford (2-10-0, 0-5-0) defense and drilled a shot past the Regents' goalkeeper.

10 minutes later Zach Peltonen delivered a near-perfect pass to Eric Rodriguez who was on the far side of the penalty box and found pay dirt for his first goal of the season. Just moments later Danny Heerhold connected on a shot from 30 yards out to close out the scoring.

"I was upset at halftime because we had a game plan and we didn't do a good job of following it," MU head coach Craig Peltonen said. "In the locker room I stressed that we needed to play wider and faster. We started to have some scoring chances and Junior's (Israel Tovar) goal really opened the flood gates."

Despite not showing up in the box score, Peltonen said, he was pleased with the play of Emmanuel Zepeda and Ramon Sutherland.

"Manny (Zepeda) did a solid job in the back. We committed a lot of guys forward and he stymied their (Rockford) counterattack. Ramon was good out wide and he helped jumpstart our offense."

If there was a time of possession statistic in soccer, Marian would have kept the ball for the majority of the contest. The Sabres (9-3-1, 3-2-1 NACC) outshot the Regents 28-2 – including 16-2 in the second half.

Marian returns to the pitch Wednesday evening for a NACC contest with Lakeland. Start time is set for 7 p.m. at Smith Field.

--FightBlueFight--