Colleges: No.3 Bulls rebound with victory against Pittsburgh

Goals by Andre Mittoo and Bernardo Anor allowed No.3 South Florida to rebound from its first loss of the season as the Bulls beat Pittsburgh 2-1 on Sunday afternoon at Founders Field.

Mittoo gave the Bulls (6-1-1, 2-1-1 Big East) the lead in the 16th minute, capitalizing on a rebound after Ashani Fairslough had been initially denied.

Bulls coach George Kiefer said he thought the Bulls aggressiveness was crucial to their overall performance on a poor surface that had taken on a lot of water over the past two days.

“On this type of surface (rough and bumpy) we really wanted to push the game into their half of the field,” said Kiefer. “We played out backs very aggressive and stepped up the pressure. We also changed up our formations which is something that we have been working on, and I think we are getting good enough where we can slide into something different if we need to in certain games.”

The Bulls maintained their hold on the game throughout the first half, and then started the second half brightly too. That led to a 52nd minute penalty kick that was converted by Anor to give the Bulls a 2-0 lead.

Pittsburgh (1-8-0, 0-4-0) pulled a goal back with five minutes to go, but the Bulls held on to earn victory. After losing its first game of the season on Friday night against West Virginia, Kiefer was pleased with the team’s performance.

“I thought the guys did a very good job today,” Kiefer said. “Pitt is one of the more difficult places to play with its field, couple that with the fact that is has been raining the past few days, so it was a very muddy surface and we had to tweak the way we played. But I thought that our guys did a great job with that.”