By Brittany Burke
The CCSU women’s soccer team (1-2-0 overall, 0-0-0 NEC) found their first victory of the season against the Holy Cross Crusaders with a 3-2 win in Tuesday night’s matchup.
The Blue Devils entered the night’s game down two games after early season losses to the Army at home on Aug. 26 and later at Boston College on Aug. 29.
After getting shutout in the match against Boston College, CCSU managed to score early with a goal from freshman Kerriann Welch 5:53 into the first half. The goal was the first for Welch as a Blue Devil, and the first goal of the season for CCSU. Welch was assisted by senior Lauren Salvia.
Less than five minutes later Welch increased the Blue Devils’ lead to two when she scored again, this time unassisted at 8:11 in the first. Welch managed the goal off a misplay made by Holy Cross’ goalkeeper Ashlyn Angell.
In an attempt to clear the ball Angell kicked it to Welch at which time she was able to capitalize on the mistake and score the second goal of the Blue Devils’ season.
However, the CCSU lead vanished as quickly as it appeared. In less than 15 minutes after CCSU’s second goal the Crusaders managed to stay alive and tie the game with two apiece at 17:23 and 19:51.
“Two up, capitalized on two mistakes and you know from there on in we should’ve made it comfortable, and you know within two minutes they were back in the game and it was just a little naïve at times,” said head coach Mick D’Arcy, “but this is all a part of the learning process.”
CCSU took the game into the half tied and was looking for ways to come back and hold the lead that Welch had given them.
“To be honest it was a bit of a downer and half time talk definitely boosted us up a bit and we knew what we had to do today, we needed to come out with a W,” said senior Beth Loyd.
Lloyd scored the game winning goal 57:42 into regulation play with a header off a free kick, giving the Blue Devils the one point advantage for the remainder of the game and her first goal of the season. Lloyd was assisted by freshman Nathalie Nilsson.
“Before the goal I was just gesturing to Nat (Nilsson) to dink in over because the defense was quite high up so after she did it, I followed it up… I went in behind the defense and luckily the defender got a flick on it,” Lloyd said. “She didn’t get full contact and just managed to get it past the keeper.”
Despite walking away with a win the Blue Devils had to fight through the second half knowing that one of their teammates was injured. Freshman Lauren Varholak, who entered the second half as a substitute for Lloyd, was unable to walk off the pitch on her own and had to be carted off after collapsing in the far sideline.
After a further examination the team was still waiting on an official diagnosis for her injury.
“You’ve got to learn how to deal with adversity,” Coach D’arcy said. “There was two major things happened today, one ,we gave up a two goal lead and two, we saw one of our teammates carted off the field which is upsetting to say the least.”
CCSU is looking to carry the winning momentum into their next game against Columbia on Fri. Sept. 3, which will be played at the University of Hartford.
Conference play does not pick up until the end of the month when they face Quinnipiac on Sept. 26. Until then, D’Arcy looks at the games more as a learning tool for his young class.
“For us at this time of the year, especially for us with so many young players, it’s just really installing our system and how we want to play. And we’re relearning as we go along, so the results are great. But in all honesty it’s not the most important thing for us,” D’Arcy said.
CCSU will not see any action at home until Sept. 17 against Hartford.
