On Friday, Nov. 7, at Veterans Memorial Field Sports Complex, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse women’s soccer team defeated the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Pointers in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) championship semifinal. The Eagles flew past the Pointers in a dominating fashion, winning the matchup 9-0.
The Eagles entered the WIAC tournament as the one seed after finishing the regular season with a 16-2-1 record. The team’s path to this consistent success is an unrelenting style of play that allows for constant growth of the team in the process.
“We’ve scored a lot of goals and really created a lot of chances and we just believe in an attacking style of football…and the more we can run at people, the more we can train at a level that’s really high, the more that we can continue to grow and develop,” said head coach Jason Murphy.
A byproduct of putting up a lot of goals has been players setting new records. On Nov. 1, third year forward Aubree Caya, in a matchup against the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, set the record for number of goals scored in a single season with 21 goals. In an interview with The Racquet Press, Caya credited her teammates for setting her up for record breaking success.
“Honestly like 95% of my goals I was just in the box and my teammates did all the work to play me the ball. My teammates are a huge part because they did all the work, setting the ball up perfectly for me to tap it in,” said Caya after the game.
On Friday evening the team came out firing on all cylinders to start out the matchup. Less than three minutes into the game teamwork prevailed as Caya assisted first year midfielder Ella Opie on a goal to open up the scoring for the Eagles. The early goal set the tone for the team as they were able to pick up momentum for the rest of the game.
“It’s obviously the playoffs and they’re going to come out hard, but right away three minutes into the game we scored…which was really awesome for us, we kept the momentum going the entire game which is a great way to start a playoff game,” said Caya.
The Eagles continued their scoring streak as 34 minutes into the matchup fourth-year midfielder Kaitlyn Kurtz scored the Eagles’ second goal. The team kept the offensive showcase going to close out the half scoring two more goals in a five-minute span. First year forward Riley Veenendaal made a goal assisted by first year midfielder Morgan Fitt 40 minutes into the game. This was followed by Fitt scoring a goal herself with 30 seconds remaining in the half to give the Eagles a 4-0 advantage to enter the break.
Coming out of halftime the Eagles would continue to keep the scoring going. Caya would start the half with a goal assisted by second year forward Amaya Thesing 46 minutes into the matchup increasing the Eagle’s points to 5-0.
The team would go on to score three goals in an impressive five-minute span with Caya scoring the first with an assist from Opie. Thesing scored the next goal with an assist from third year forward Jillian Sawadski. Sawadski then scored a goal of her own with another assist from Opie. This scoring barrage would end with the Eagles holding an 8-0 advantage. The last goal would come from second year forward Grace Williams 76 minutes into the matchup to end the game 9-0.
“We can really put pressure on teams by being consistent and being really thorough in our movement and decision making in the final third” Commented Murphy.
The win earned the Eagles a bid for the WIAC conference championship against the University of Wisconsin Platteville on Nov. 9. Going into their next game Murphy commented on the challenges ahead.
“We play a game where there’s thousands of moments in a match and the games that are the best are won and lost in two or three moments… there’s just moments in soccer games it really comes down to winning a 50-50 ball, finishing a chance, making a save the challenges are going to be real,” said Murphy.
More stats and information can be found on the UWL athletics website.
