WORCESTER, Mass. -- Behind a two-goal first half, the UMass Lowell men's soccer team held on to clip Holy Cross, 2-1, on Friday night to pick up the team's first win of 2019. Stanley Alves (Minas Gerais, Brazil) scored his second goal in as many contests, and Roko Prsa (Sisak, Croatia) provided the fourth game-winning strike of his career.

The River Hawks (1-1-1) earned the victory despite being outshot, 13-4, and had only three attempts on net to Holy Cross' five, but Patrick Gujic (Bjelovar, Croatia) stood strong in net making four saves in the effort. 

"I thought we did well to control the game early on," noted Head Coach Christian Figueroa. "We took another step forward tonight and need to improve in all areas of the game. We're beginning to create more opportunities, now we just need to put our chances away."

Alves one-timed a perfect cross from Denis Petro (Michalovce, Slovakia) into the back of the net to open the scoring in the 15th minute, as the freshman recorded his second assist of the young campaign for the River Hawks (1-1-1). 

Following a string of five consecutive Crusader (0-2-0) shots, Prsa doubled the gap for the visitors on a bouncing ball that he corralled and sent off the crossbar and straight over the line in the 33rd minute.

Holy Cross was able to pull one back in the 40th minute on a shot from Emmanuel Petrov that just glanced off of Gujic's foot as he attempted to push the shot wide. The hosts rattled off six saves in the second 45, but forced Gujic to only make a pair of saves, including a diving attempt in the 74th minute.

UMass Lowell returns to Cushing Field for both games next week, beginning with Tuesday's matchup with Northeastern at 7 p.m.