Box Score Showing the cutting edge they had lacked the day before, the Marauders ran roughshod over the Windsor Lancers in a 3-0 romp on Sunday.
Nate Morris, Gersi Xhuti and Mark Reilly each had goals for McMaster, in a game filled with scoring chances and attacking thrust. The victory is the Marauders' first of the young OUA season, improving their conference record to 1-0-2.
The hosts were firing on all cylinders from the opening whistle, and came close to an early opener when a long range effort blazed over the bar following a well-worked layoff pass in just the second minute. Xhuti, who wreaked creative havoc on the Windsor backline throughout Sunday's game, produced his first incisive through ball on nine minutes, with Morris being flagged for offside as he sprang loose of coverage.
The veteran winger continued to boss play in the first half, and nearly had a goal of his own in the 20th minute when his drive from a set piece slammed into the far post and bounced clear. He was back under centre just two minutes later, playing a perfectly-weighted ball for Sasha Ricciuti, whose chip caught the Windsor keeper in no-man's land, but floated agonizingly high of the bar.
Xhuti's attacking efforts were finally rewarded in the 35th minute, when he drove wide of his defender and squared the ball across the box, and the duo of Riccuiti and Morris crashed the scene, with the latter poking the ball past the keeper for the game's first goal.
McMaster struck for the second time just minutes after the resumption of play in the second half, as Xhuti added a goal of his own. Halftime addition Mark Reilly rounded his marker along the right and crossed into the box, where Xhuti applied the finish to double his team's advantage in the 48th minute.
Momentum was firmly in the Marauders' corner after that second goal, and a flurry of chances followed for a third. Reilly was the point man for several of those, and saw a close range shot turned onto the post by the keeper in the 69th minute.
But he remained dilligent, and his deserved breakthrough came in spectacular fashion just eight minutes later, as Reilly successfully took on five defenders, drove wide and cut a shot back across goal that beat the keeper inside the near post.
Defender Aleks Vincic nearly added a fourth in the game's dying stages, getting his head to a Marauder set piece and forcing a diving save from the beleaguered Lancer keeper in the 90th minute.
But Reilly's outstanding effort would stand as the game's final goal, as McMaster grabbed all three points in emphatic fashion against a tough Windsor side, one that knocked the Marauders out of the playoffs a season ago.
McMaster hopes to build on that momentum in three days' time, as the Marauders host the Brock Badgers at Ron Joyce Stadium on Wednesday, September 10. That match is scheduled to begin at 8:15 p.m., following the preceding women's match.
