HIRAM, Ohio (October 27, 2021) – Junior Vitor Rocha knotted his third goal in two matches and had the game-winner in overtime as the Denison University men's soccer team defeated Hiram College 2-1 on the road on Wednesday night to win its fifth match in a row and guarantee the Big Red at least a third-place finish in the North Coast Athletic Conference men's soccer standings.

With the win, Denison improves to 10-4-1 overall and 6-2 in the North Coast Athletic Conference while Hiram fell to 3-11 and 1-7 with the loss. It is the first 10-win season for the Big Red since 2015.

The Big Red outshot the Terriers a whopping 32-4 overall and 19-3 on shots on goal, and held Hiram to without a corner kick, but Hiram hung tough as goalkeeper Shelby Edwards made 16 saves.

For Denison, the leading shot takers were Ethan Miracle with eight, Rocha with five and Cameron McIntosh with four. Additionally, Lorenz Hoover and Rohan Tripathy put all three of their shot attempts on goal while Rocha put four of his five shots on target.

Despite firing 17 total shots and 12 shots on goal in the first half alone, it took until the final two and a half minutes of the first half for the Big Red to get on the scoreboard thanks to a goal by Tripathy assisted by Luke Mattessich.

After Hiram tied it up in the 69th minute, the game-winner for Rocha then came only a minute and a half into the first overtime period.

Head Coach Brandon Bianco spoke after the win, saying "We made the game harder on ourselves than we had to, but give credit to Hiram, who really stretched us in moments. I'm proud of our guys for battling and finding a winner in overtime. Tonight we achieved our goal of playing in November, and we look to sharpen things up as we finish the regular season Saturday."

Denison will play one more match on the road as the Big Red travel to the College of Wooster for a 3:30 p.m. kickoff on Saturday, October 30, in its regular-season finale.