STANDISH, ME – Saint Joseph's (7-4, 4-2 GNAC) breezed past Rivier College (0-8, 0-6 GNAC), 4-0, in a Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) men's soccer match at Westerlea Way Field on Saturday. Junior back Joe Murphy (Poland, Maine) recorded his first collegiate brace in the victory.

Murphy put the Monks on the board with an early goal off a Mike Sanfilippo '12 (Walpole, Mass.) pass at the 6:05 mark and later netted an insurance tally for the hosts with a header score off a Jose Ossers '15 (Bradford, Mass.) feed in the 56th minute.

Zach Johnson '14 (Westbrook, Maine) registered his team-leading sixth goal of the season off a nice pass from fellow forward Ross Suleski '14 (Amesbury, Mass./St. Thomas Aquinas) at the 48:00 mark and Ali Hersi '15 (Lewiston, Maine) capped the SJC scoring when he deked a pair of Rivier defenders inside the box and hit pay-dirt in the 73rd minute of play.

Kenny Grade '14 (Hampton, N.H./St. Thomas Aquinas) started in goal for St. Joe's but was not tested in 47:31 between the pipes. Robert Petrosillo '15 (Methuen, Mass.) registered one save in 42:29 minutes of mop-up duty. Rivier keeper Bryar King '15 (Berlin, N.H.) was busy in net with 14 saves on the afternoon.

Saint Joseph's held commanding advantages in shots (43-1) and corner kicks (5-0) while committing 12 fouls to the Raiders' seven in the conference contest. The Monks broke the program single-game record for shots in the one-sided match – a record that was set when the Royal Blue posted 37 shots in a 1-0 victory over Johnson & Wales University on September 12th, 2009.

With the win, St. Joe's improves to 4-2-1 in the history of the series with Rivier and has now defeated the Raiders in four consecutive meetings.

With five regular-season games – including four GNAC matches – remaining, St. Joe's sits in a tie for third place in the conference standings with Emerson College.

The Monks will play at Johnson & Wales in a conference contest slated to begin at 1:00 PM on Monday. Rivier hosts Emmanuel on Monday at 1:00 PM.