OTTAWA – Stefan Defregger scored twice while Jalen Brown added a third as the Rochester Rhinos took a 3-0 victory against Ottawa Fury FC in a preseason scrimmage on Friday morning at the University of Ottawa. All three goals for the Rhinos arrived in the final 15 minutes as Rochester took their second win of the preseason.

After a good early save by Fury FC goalkeeper Callum Irving, Ottawa forward Steevan Dos Santos – facing his former team for the first time – and Gerardo Bruna had two excellent scoring chances in the Rhinos’ penalty area, but they both came up short, leaving the game scoreless after 45 minutes.

Ottawa’s Sito Seoane started the second half with a great individual effort in the box, cutting through two Rhinos defenders and firing a half-volley toward the top corner, but Rochester's goalkeeper got a piece of it and tipped it over the bar.

With fresher players on the field after halftime substitutions saw the Rhinos revamp their lineup, Rochester intensified its high-press and got closer to Irving's goal. The pressure paid off when the Rhinos opened the scoring in the 76th minute on a penalty kick, when DeFregger got his first of the game. DeFregger scored his second six minutes later when he intercepted a ball in Ottawa's defensive third, before Brown completed the scoring in the 87th minute.

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For the first time in preseason, Fury FC Head Coach Paul Dalglish wanted to test his players' fitness by giving them a full 90-minute game. That ultimately gave the advantage to Rochester late in the match, as they brought in a fresh set of players to kick off the second half.
"When Rochester brought on basically a whole new team in the second half, it was too much for us," said Dalglish. "We were very tired in the last 10 minutes and made three mistakes and were punished for it. But I want to focus mainly on the first 80 minutes where we had a lot of positives to build on. Overall, I'm disappointed with the final score but pleased in a lot of other areas.”

The loss is Fury FC’s second in a row this preseason after falling 2-1 to Toronto FC II last week.
"Losing 3-0 is not good so I'm very disappointed. It's another learning experience for us, a hard one but, nothing we can do now about it," said Fury FC captain Lance Rozeboom. "We have to learn from it reassess the game over the weekend and come out stronger next week. Ultimately, you learn from it, you move on, you can't dwell on it. You can't get too high with the wins, or too low with the losses, but losing hurt and it should always hurt."