By Zack Downing, Staff Writer
The UMass Dartmouth women’s soccer team has had a very rough season, coming up short in most matches working with an emaciated offense.
Coming into their match at Southern Maine on Saturday, October 21, they were 4-12 on the season, and not only were they on a four game losing streak, they were on a four game scoreless streak. The last goal came two weeks prior at Rhode Island College.
The team had only had four games all season that saw more than one Corsair goal. Unfortunately, their skid didn’t improve against Southern Maine.
This matchup, on a rainy Maine afternoon, was scoreless until the 35th minute, when the Huskies’ Emma Cost took a shot that bounced off the post and went in the net.
Ten minutes later, teammate Sarah Michaud scored off a corner kick to bring the score to 2-0.
The second half was action-packed, but saw no change on the scoreboard. The Corsairs took shot after shot, but never got it past the Southern Maine goalie, Taylor Canastra, who played exceptionally.
The game ended, 2-0, Southern Maine. What’s interesting about this game is the fact that the Corsairs played better than the Huskies in the majority of stats; the Corsairs took more than double the shots, took more corner kicks, and committed a lot less fouls.
It ended up being the goalie that saved the day for the Huskies.
UMass Dartmouth went off to Worcester State on another rainy day to try to bounce back from their losing streak.
The game’s first goal came in the 13th minute off a long pass from Lancer back Nicole Gifford to her teammate Ashleigh Howard, who put it in to make the score 1-0, Worcester State.
A corner kick from the Lancers right before halftime doubled the score, when the ball was headed in by Worcester’s Jenna Martin.
The Worcester State offense didn’t back down in the 2nd half, scoring two more quick goals. The game was actually stopped prematurely in the 72nd minute, as the heavy rain had made playing very difficult.
This time, the Corsairs were quite outmatched on the stat board, taking only six shots to their opponent’s 17.
Their final regular season game came at home against the Keene State Owls, looking to end their season on a high note and score some goals.
It was more than 20 minutes until the first goal was scored, with a long shot from the Owls’ Natalle Roca. Three minutes later, Keene State scored again to lift the score to 2-0.
In the 33rd minute, the Corsairs finally hit their first goal in seven games, when UMass Dartmouth senior Alyssa Martins scored on a free kick following a Keene State foul. UMass Dartmouth went into halftime with the score 2-1 and some momentum on their side.
However, the hope didn’t last long, as the Owls scored twice more in the second half, ending the game on a 4-1 score.
The final tally for the Corsairs women’s soccer team is 4-15-1 out of 20 games, despite starting 2-4-1.
UMass Dartmouth had a rematch against Keene State on Halloween as part of the first round of the Little East Conference Tournament, which they lost 4-2.