WESTON, Mass. - Middlesex traveled to Weston for a Class B showdown with Rivers and put in a great first half performance against a dynamic and athletic Rivers squad. The first 15 to 20 minutes saw Rivers playing accurate balls forward to Andrew Alexandrescu and Jai Gardner, with support from Karim Eljamal and Austin Del Col underneath that.

Middlesex had to absorb the pressure and adjust their system before the game started to open up for them. The first half strikes came in quick succession. First, in the 21 st minute, Hanad Garad (Chestnut Hill, Mass.) slipped a ball in between the center backs for Adriano Valmora (Montreal, Quebec) to latch on to and deposit in the net for the lead.

Valmora doubled that lead just two minutes later by smashing the ball into the roof of the net in transitional play after some effective pressing work by midfielders Garad, Billy Zuze (Blantyre, Malawi) Theo Moore (Louisville, Ky.) and Kai Raczkowski (Cohasset, Mass.). With just a few minutes left until halftime, Colin Hope (Barrington, R.I.) linked up on a counterattack with Valmora and played a ball off the right post for Baze Kalisa (Concord, Mass.) to lift over the keeper and into the net.

With a 3-0 halftime lead, Rivers was determined to press on and create chances. They did that within 40 seconds, as a Middlesex defender handled the ball in the penalty area for a penalty kick. Keeper Noah Browne (Kingston, Jamaica) was up for the test, as he stopped Alexandrescu's low effort and held on to the rebound to negate any second chances.

The rest of the second half saw a number of deep throw in and corner kicks for Rivers, but they were well defended. Middlesex had a number of counter attacking chances that were thwarted by some excellent stops by the Rivers keeper, William Hecksher.

Maxwell Kaufman scored for Rivers with three minutes remaining and the visitors held on until the final whistle for a 3-1 road result.

Alex Erdos, Andy Pollart, and Josh Sardinha stood out for Rivers and Chris DeMorais (Wakefield, Mass.), Valmora, and Zuze were the standouts for Middlesex. It was a clean and exciting end-to-end match and both teams played fairly and stayed out of the referee's notebook.

The Zebras are back in action on Saturday with a home matchup with Thayer Academy.