MANCHESTER, N.H. – Four second-half goals for the Saint Anselm College women's soccer team created a comfortable 4-1 victory on Wednesday over Wilmington (Del.) University.
Saint Anselm improves to 2-0-0 on the season following the non-league tilt while Wilmington, a finalist in last season's Central Atlantic Collegiate Championship postseason, falls to 0-2-1. The Hawks host another non-league game on Friday, facing Goldey-Beacom at 3 p.m.
Sophomore Faith Lee (North Andover, Mass.) pocketed the game-winning goal in the game's 70th minute, breaking a 1-1 deadlock and sparking a stretch of three Saint Anselm goals in just over three minutes of game play. Crashing a Wilmington defender, Lee picked her pocket and beat the netminder one-on-one for the goal.
After a scoreless first half where the Hawks fired five of the eight shots, Saint Anselm got on the board first as junior Reagan Meehan (Haverhill, Mass.), just off the bench, scored her first collegiate goal off a feed from Allison Silverstein (Concord, N.H.) – both scored their first collegiate points on the play.
Just seven-plus minutes later, a free kick sent into the mix by Wilmington's Isabella Lundberg was headed home in the goal mouth by Annie Holst, beating the Saint Anselm defense and the keeper in the lower-left quadrant of the goal just inside the post.
A right-to-left cross in the box was mishandled by Wilmington on defense, allowing freshman Zarina Pinto (Groveland, Mass.) to score an easy goal to push the Hawks lead to two at 70:24. Junior Alexandra Baltas (Worcester, Mass.) capped off the scoring just 2:07 later, reeling in a long ball from freshman Addie Birkett (East Greenwich, R.I.) over the top of the defense and beating the keeper one-on-one.
Saint Anselm fired six shots on goal in the game while a stout defense limited the Wildcats to just two on frame. The Hawks pushed the tempo in the final 45 minutes, blasting eight of their 13 shots in that timeframe.
Freshman Emma Hudson (Kingston, Mass.) moves to 2-0-0 in her goalkeeping career for Saint Anselm, making a save on two shots faced. Wilmington's Mio Nakajima conceded four goals on six shots, drawing the loss.
