Women's College Soccer
Rider University 1, Saint Peter's College 0
LAWRENCEVILLE—Peaking
at the right time. The Rider University
women's soccer team ended the regular season with three victories in its last
five games, including the final two, as the Broncs head into the Metro Atlantic
Athletic Conference Championship tournament.
“When you bring in 12 freshmen you are not going to be at your best in
September,” said second year head coach Drayson Hounsome, who led Rider to its
most wins since 2004. “The challenge is to figure out who plays where, who does
what, who performs best at what positions, and now we've figured it out.”
One of
those 12 freshmen is Claire Thompson (East Greenwich, R.I./E.
Greenwich), who scored off of a rebound with nine minutes left in the second
half to lead Rider to victory
over Saint Peter's Sunday afternoon. “It was great to see that ball go in,”
Hounsome said.
Rider junior
Lauren Musumeci (Annandale, N.J./North Hunterdon) hit the crossbar with a
strike from 20 yards out that rebounded to Thompson who one-touched the ball into the net for the only
goal of the game. “Claire is going to chase everything down, she's never going
to quit and she gets the rewards for it,” Hounsome said.
It was the
third goal of the season for Thompson, tied for second most on the team.
Rider
out-shot Saint Peter's 21-2, including 15-1 in the second half. Musumeci had
seven of Rider's shots and three of Rider's 10 shots on goal. “It was just a
matter of time before Moose (Musumeci) put one on the money,” Hounsome
said. “This one was just inches off,
came off the crossbar and Claire did a fantastic job of following up.”
Rider junior
goalkeeper Alex Post (Chalfont,
Pa./Central Bucks West) made one
save for the shutout victory, her second shutout of the season and the sixth of
her career.
Caitlin Hoffer made nine saves for SPC.
The victory
was the third in the last five games for the Broncs. Rider finishes the regular season with a
record of 7-10-1 overall, 3-6 in the MAAC. The seven wins is the most for Rider
since the 2004 season when Rider won 12 games.
The regular
season finale marked the end of the careers at home for five seniors: Alison Brody (Alexandria, Va./West
Potomac), Natalie Sica (Marlton, N.J./Holy Cross), Stacy Belgiovene (Toms
River, N.J./Toms River North), Kate Murphy (Holland, Pa./Council Rock
South) and Leslie Amster (Somerville,
N.J./Somerville). The day was especially
sweet for Amster, who was a starter on the Bronc defense her first two seasons
before a major knee injury caused her to miss last year.
“Leslie was one of our stronger players before I arrived
here and in my mind I had her playing a lot for us last year,” Hounsome
said. “Her injury was a major set back,
not only to her but for our team. She has had the challenge of coming back and
she's almost back to the best she has ever been. It is great to see someone
overcome an injury, come back, and be successful.”
“It was
really difficult last year,” said Amster, who graduates in December with a
degree in Human Resource Management. “It felt great to come back this year. I
think as a team we are more confident this year, we've been able to move the
ball better and we were able to go on the attack more.”
The Broncs
won six of seven home games this year. “It was great playing at home this
year,” Amster said. “The biggest thing was at a lot of our games there were a
lot of people here. There were so many fans and winning for them felt really
great.”
Rider won
2-1 at Saint Peter's last season. Rider
and Saint Peter's have now met 14 times since the series began in 1997 with
Rider winning 11.
Saint
Peter's finishes at 4-14-1 overall, 1-8-0 in the MAAC.
The 10-team
MAAC championship tournament begins Thursday at Disney's Wide World of Sports
complex in Florida.
“We're playing our best soccer when it matters most,” Hounsome said. “I'm very
excited about what we have coming up in the next week or so.”
The
official pairings of the tournament will be announced Monday. “If we play well,
the way we've been, there is no one we need to be afraid of,” Hounsome
said. “I think we'll play Marist or Manhattan. Both are good
teams and if we don't play well we will lose to both of those teams. If we play
well we've got a good chance to succeed and move on.”
“It is
really exciting,” Amster said of the upcoming MAAC tournament. “It will be tough to play two games in a row
(Thursday and Friday) but I think we can do it. We just played two good games
Friday (4-1 win over Manhattan)
and today, so it will be nice.”
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