Women's College Soccer
Rider University 5, Canisius College 1
BUFFALO, NY- Payback.
Last season the Broncs dominated play, outshooting the visiting Golden Griffins 21-10, but lost 1-0 in a regular season game at Rider. In the 2010 conference semifinals, Rider again out-played the top seeded Golden Griffins, out-shooting them 16-8 and holding them to just one shot on goal, but again fell 1-0 and having the Rider season come to an end.
"There was definitely some disappointment from a year ago," said Rider head coach Drayson Hounsome. "We've wanted to play this game for quite a while."
Junior Abi Cottam compiled three goals and an assist and junior Claire Thompson scored twice, to lead Rider to a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference victory over the defending conference regular season champion, Canisius, Sunday afternoon.
"Finally we got what we deserved against Canisius," Cottam said. "This is what we needed."
"It was great to come out and get a strong result," Hounsome said. "It was a great team effort today. We put more focus on our offensive plan."
The victory was Rider's third five-goal game of the season. The 'hat trick' was the first for Cottam this year, the second of her career and just the seventh in the 15-year history of the sport at Rider.
Cottam (Leominster, England/Ludlow) scored to break a scoreless tie in the 55th minute and came right back less than two minutes later with another goal, her fourth multi-goal game of the season.
"This conference is so tight no matter who plays who, whoever plays best that day is usually going to win," Cottam said. "We played better today and finally the score showed that."
Thompson (East Greenwich, R.I./E. Greenwich) took a pass from Cottam and scored to give Rider (8-4-2, 1-2 MAAC) a 3-0 lead with 30 minutes remaining and took a pass from sophomore Bridgette Bartkowski (Marlton, NJ/Cherokee) to score her third goal of the season with 16 minutes left, giving the Broncs a 4-0 lead.
"Claire did a fantastic job," Hounsome said. "It was fun," said Thompson after her first career multi-goal game. "Today we were able to capitalize on things we were not able to last year. Canisius is a pretty good team and this is a huge confidence boost for us. We needed this after dropping our first two conference games. We're definitely back on track now."
Cottam took a pass from Bartkowski and scored with less than nine minutes remaining for her MAAC-high 11th goal of the season and her MAAC-high 30th point of the season.
Bartkowski now has five assists on the season after sharing the team lead last season as a rookie with five.
Cottam now had 19 goals and 16 assists for 54 points in 40 career games. Cottam now ranks second in career assists at Rider and is already fourth in career goals and points.
Canisius (8-5-2, 3-1 MAAC) broke the shutout with a goal with 6:48 remaining.
Rider freshman goalkeeper Danielle Singson (Deer Park, NY/St. Anthony's) made four saves.
Rider out-shot Canisius 20-13, including 12-5 in shots on goal.
Rider and Canisius have now met 16 times since the series began in 1997, with Canisius holding a slight 8-7-1 advantage in the series. The last time Rider defeated Canisius was 2006.
Before reaching the MAAC Championship Game last year the Golden Griffins advanced to the 2009 MAAC Tournament semifinals, losing to eventual champion Loyola.
The Broncs host Marist Friday afternoon. "We just need to keep moving forward," Hounsome said.
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