Williams women’s soccer: Ephs blow by Colby, 4-0, in first-round NESCAC action
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The Ephs scored twenty-three seconds after the opening whistle, setting the tone for an aggressive first half of play. Dominating time on the ball for the majority of the first forty-five minutes of the contest, Williams scored three goals in the first twenty minutes on the field. Ephs’ senior tri-captain Sarah Walmsley began the offensive spurt on an unassisted goal. Walmsley collected off a deflection from a Colby defender about fifteen yards from the goal, and ripped a ball to the low corner of the far post.
Williams doubled their lead at the 12:00 minute-mark off a pretty sequence of soccer between Sara Wild and Bret Eisenhart. Kara Duggan began the play at mid-field, taking a free kick following a foul. Wild headed the ball at the 18- yard box to Eisenhart who lofted the ball with her head over a leaping Colby keeper for the 2-0 lead.
The scoring frenzy continued when just eight minutes later Tyler Rainer added another tally to the Ephs side of the scoreboard. Wild assisted on her second goal of the game, feeding a cross to a speedy Rainer flashing on her right side. Rainer went one-on-one with the keeper, shooting a hard ball to middle of the goal to bring the Ephs advantage to three.
After scoring a late goal in a challenging game at Middlebury just two days ago, the Ephs needed a solid performance today to bring their competitive play back to the field.
“We needed that Middlebury game to shake us a bit,” said William’s head coach Michelyne Pinard. “We a lot of things that we needed to work on in that game, and it helped us to work out some of the mental kinks.”
Colby was able to keep Williams quiet for the remainder of the first half, and placed significantly more pressure on the ball in the second period to quell the Ephs offense, but Williams would tack another goal to their total at the 66:07 mark. Annelise Snyder placed a perfectly timed ball to teammate Samantha Vilboa on a breakaway play up field. Narrowly avoiding an offside call, Vilboa went on a foot race against her defender but out paced her to nail a shot to the bottom left corner of net to bring the score to 4-0.
Lauren Sinnenberg recorded the win for the Ephs, with two saves. With Julia Schreiber out for the season with an injury, the All-American Sinnenberg will serve as Willam's primary goaltender for the remainder of the season. Colby keeper Loni Pisani had five saves in the loss.
With a perfect regular season behind them, the top-ranked Williams squad is looking forward to the exciting part of the season.
“In September and October, we are thinking through every game but we were not being competitive with fire,” continued Pinard. “In November, there is an extra level added where we not only bring our thinking to every game but we bring that competitive fire that is necessary to be successful in the post- season.”
The Ephs will look to add their third-consecutive conference title to the record books next weekend.
“Our goals are simple for next week,” said Pinard. “We want to pull it all together. We have worked so hard for so long to get better every game, and we want to bring all of the facets together for next weekend.”
