It was a cold and rainy night, but that didn’t stop the Rowan women’s soccer team as they defeated New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) opponent Rutgers-Newark and mother nature with a dominating 2-0 win on Tuesday, Oct. 4.
The first half started with a slight mist, some cold winds and little offense from either side, but as the second half loomed, a storm started to brew and the Profs came out firing.
“We know it wasn’t the best of our ability,” freshman forward Olivia Giordano said. “At half time we cooped up together, talked about it, knew what we had to do, knew our strengths and we just settled down overall.”
The Profs got on the board early in the second. After a missed opportunity three minutes in, freshman midfielder Ava Morales netted her first goal of the season to give the Profs a 1-0 lead with 41:33 remaining.
About 14 minutes later, as the rain came down at its hardest, Giordano netted her team-leading, sixth goal of the season to give the Profs some insurance and a 2-0 lead.
“It’s obviously not conditions that we’d like,” Giordano said. “I could have had, personally, like three more [goals] but we needed to put one up to settle us down, gain confidence again… after that, we just took it to them.”
The win improved the Profs’ record to 7-0-2 (and 3-0 NJAC) which is exactly where they wanted to be at this point in the season but is also just a stepping stone.
“The whole plan was to go 3-0 in the conference,” Giordano said. “That’s been what we’ve been focused on this whole year, we just want to go 3-0, 4-0, 5-0 and just keep it going.”
On the defensive end, the Profs were lights out, only allowing one shot on goal the entire game and pitching their third consecutive NJAC shutout and fifth consecutive shutout overall.
“They always say if you have a good defense you can win games,” Head Coach Scott Leacott said. “Our defenders are just tough. Tough as nails and they like contact.”
Leacott went on to praise his team’s defense and credited their effort and excitement to play the game they love for their success.
“Playing defense you have to be smart but it’s just hard work,” Coach Leacott said. “We’ve got hard-working kids out there who just love to play and that’s part of it … Like tonight they’re like ‘I can’t wait to play’… they were all excited to play and that’s a defender’s mentality.”
The team will be back at it again on Saturday, Oct. 8, for a huge matchup against their NJAC rival, the undefeated Montclair State (10-0, 3-0 NJAC).
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