MORAGA, Calif. – The Saint Mary's Women's Soccer Team (7-1-2, 1-0) scored twice in the second half of their WCC opener for a 2-0 win over the University of San Francisco (4-3-3, 0-1) at Saint Mary's Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
THE SCORERS
The Gaels got goals from
AnnaMaria DiGeronimo and
Emily Jensen in the 70
th and 75
th minutes respectively to get the victory in the conference opener.
Saint Mary's came out firing early, including from long-distance to try and test the Dons reigning Defensive Player of the Week in the West Coast Conference in keeper Molly Eby. The Gaels took the first eight shots of the game in fact, dominating the possession time early, but were still tied 0-0 at the break.
The beginning of the second half seemed to have a bit of a feeling out period between the two teams as each tried to figure out the other's half-time adjustments. But in the 60
th minute the Gaels began to put on pressure again with shots from
Suzuna Shibukawa,
Hailey Prentice, and
Vanessa Gaitan.
HOW THEY SCORED
In the 70
th minute the Gaels broke the tie by creating chaos in front of the USF net. Jensen gathered her own rebound after being set up by DiGeronimo and she returned the favor by making a quick pass to her left to DiGeronimo who squeezed a shot between the keeper and left post to put the Gaels up 1-0.
Just five minutes later
Isabella Santavicca streaked down the left side of the USF defense. The Dons backed off the junior from Tucson, Ariz. creating space for her to pass the ball to Shibukawa at the top of the penalty box. Shibukawa flipped it up with her left foot and fed it to Jensen. The Salt Lake native did the rest as she put a shot into the right side of the net, as the Dons keeper looked frozen in her tracks, possibly still focused on the fancy footwork by Shibukawa.
Saint Mary's salted away the clock from there, and though the Gaels only allowed three shots on goal, two of them were at point-blank range that required steady stops from
Taylor Poland in net.
UP NEXT
The Gaels will travel to Provo, Utah to take on #22 BYU on Wednesday, October 6 at 6:00 p.m.