By Matthew D. Stokes, BerryVikings.com Lead Writer

ROME, Ga. – Keyed by two goals in the second half, Berry snapped a three-game losing streak and earned its first-ever Southern Athletic Association conference victory as it bested Rhodes, 2-0, on a Friday afternoon at Ford Field.

Sophomore Christian Fulbright scored his fifth goal of the season early in the second half, and senior Leo Gutierrez netted his first score of 2012 later in the period.

Freshman goalkeeper Logan Hill earned the victory for Berry, making three saves on the day. His Rhodes counterpart, Riley Sheen, was tagged with the loss after stopping four shots.

Berry improves its record to 8-3 and 1-1 in SAA play while Rhodes dropped to 3-6-1 and 0-2.

Fulbright put Berry on the board when he capitalized on a pass from senior Kartee Johnson at 51:29.

"Christian's goal was a very, nice goal. It was a good move in a one-on-one play by Kartee, and then he played a really nice pass to Christian who was moving in the right place at the right time," said Berry Head Coach Richard Vardy. "It was a good shot. He hit it hard and hit it early. We needed it because we weren't clicking like we'd like to today."

Deep in that same half, Gutierrez notched another goal on a penalty kick at 84:48.

"There was a bit of a scramble in the box, and one of the players got frustrated and just kicked out at David Shaw. It was a definite penalty kick," Vardy said. "And then Leo had a composed kick. It's nice for Leo to get himself a goal."

When asked about the significance of the program's first SAA win, Vardy maintained that the team needed to remain focused on improving its play.

"It's a good start in terms of results. We're happy to get a win in the conference, but we need to play better than this. And we've played better than this," said Vardy about this particular performance. "We just didn't play up to our potential today. As much as we loved the first conference win, we want to play better than how we played today."

Berry will return to action at Ford Field on Sunday afternoon against SAA opponent Hendrix College at 2 p.m.

"It's a bit of an unknown because we haven't played Hendrix before. It should be a pretty physical, direct style of game," Vardy said. "Hopefully we'll adapt to that and still be able to play our style of soccer."