Box Score Women's College Soccer
Rider University 2, Saint Peter's University 0
JERSEY CITY, NJ— Some 2,000 feet away from here on the Saint Peter's campus stand two very large feet. They belong to a robed woman representing Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom. The right foot is raised, depicting her as moving forward.
Wednesday afternoon the Rider women's soccer team continued to move forward, improving to the best record in the conference.
The Rider Broncs (6-2-2) improved to 3-0 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference with a victory at Saint Peter's Wednesday afternoon.
“Saint Peter's is a hard place to come and play,” said Rider head coach Drayson Hounsome. “All the things we work on in training, we are not able to do here. We had to figure out a way to win and the team did that today.”
Rider took a 1-0 lead when sophomore Kourtney Cunningham (Whitehall, PA/Whitehall) scored in the 10th minute of play on a assists from senior Caroline Healy (Dublin, Ireland/Alexandra College) and junior Ellie Smith (Norwich, England/Norwich City).
Rider senior Heather Maierle (Wantagh, N.Y./Friends Academy) scored on a penalty kick in the 58th minute to give Rider a 2-0 lead after Saint Peter's was called for a hand ball in the box.
“Heather has converted all of them this year,” Hounsome said. “She has the experience and has the confidence now as well so that is good.”
It was Maierle's third goal of the season and her fourth career PK goal.
Rider out-shot Saint Peter's (1-6-1, 0-2 MAAC) 16-5, including 7-3 in shots on goal.
Rider senior goalkeeper Bethany-May Howard (Glastonbury, England/Bridgwater College) made three saves for the shutout, her fourth of the season and the 18th of her career, a Rider record.
Howard entered the game ranked 21st in the nation in saves per game and 27th in save percentage.
Rider is 4-0-2 in its last six games. Saint Peter's has now lost four in a row.
The last time Rider was 3-0 in the MAAC was 2003.
Rider defeated Saint Peter's 8-0 last year, tying the program record for goals in a game. The last time Rider visited Jersey City the Broncs won in overtime.
The last time Rider lost to Saint Peter's was 2011 when the Broncs out-shot the Peacocks 35-7 but lost 2-1.
Rider has now won five in a row against the Peacocks, 10 of the last 11 and holds a 17-4 advantage in the series that began in 1997 when Rider joined the MAAC.
Since Saint Peter's, Monmouth and Rider are all about an hour from each other, the three-way rivalry between the NJ MAAC teams is called the hOURglass. Similar to the MAAC's Commissioner Cup, the annual winner of the hOURglass will be decided by the competition of most sports between the three. The spelling of hOURglass depicts that it is OUR rivalry.
The Broncs travel to Niagara for a Saturday afternoon (1pm) game. “It is nice that we are 3-0 in conference play,” Hounsome said. “Let's hope we can make it 4-0 Saturday. In my nine seasons we have not won there so we are looking to break that.”
The Broncs were able to control their own actions on the soccer pitch Wednesday afternoon, the very definition of liberty.
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