By Andrew Chirico
Business Manager
The Shorewomen ended the week with an overtime win at Gwynedd Mercy and a 4-2 defeat when they hosted Gettysburg College.
The team ended their non-conference section of the season on a high-note thanks to junior midfielder Lindsay Russell, who scored the game-winning goal in the overtime. With the score, Russell pushed her scoring streak to two consecutive games.
More importantly, WC was able to push their record to 4-1 on the season heading into the Centennial Conference portion of their schedule. Head Coach Tom Reilly is optimistic with how his team has performed versus teams outside of their conference.
“As far as wins and losses, the team had an incredible non-conference run. I don’t think we have played well consistently during this stretch, but have performed in the key moments enough to get great results,” he said. “We have beaten the teams we had the upper hand on, and found a way to beat others that may have felt they were superior to us. The good news is we have played several different tactical styles and have carried them out pretty well, which shows great flexibility on our girl’s part.”
Reilly also stressed the team’s strengths as well as adjustments to be made for future contests.
“The team is very hardworking and have that burning desire to compete and succeed, so that never-say-die attitude has come in handy,” he said. “A current weakness has been my inability to make our midfielders comfortable while playing in tight spaces and still making the correct choices, then executing those choices. They are all talented enough to do what’s necessary, but I haven’t been able to get the pieces to fit together. We will continue to work to find the key to it because we know we can continue to improve.”
WC then opened up their conference schedule when they hosted Gettysburg and they opened the game with a quick goal from junior Olivia Sabatino at the 10 minute mark. With that goal, WC ended their eight year scoreless drought versus the Bullets. The two goals were the most the Shorewomen offense have been able to put up over Gettysburg.
Despite Gettysburg’s first half surge, scoring two goals in the first half, WC was able to trim the lead when Russell scored off a header, which was assisted by junior Arianna Sabatino.
“As we enter conference play we will not change our approach, which is to take each game as a separate challenge and try to figure out the best way to be successful on that particular day,” Reilly said. “When the dust starts to settle by mid-October we can look at where we’ve been and what’s necessary for the stretch run.
WC’s next game will be versus Johns Hopkins when they host the nationally-ranked Blue Jays on Sept. 23 for a 4 p.m. conference match.