Women’s Soccer Opens Season With A 4-1 Win Over Delaware State

It has been quite some time that the women’s soccer team’s season could have been categorized as a success, but this year’s team put the past behind them and moved on. The expectations are not to win a championship, its simply to improve, and contend for a spot in the conference tournament.

In their season opening game against MEAC foe Delaware State the women’s soccer team already showed they are an improved team as they blew past hornets, 4-1, breaking a 12 year streak without a season opening win. The last time the women’s soccer team won their season opener was in 1998, when they beat another MEAC team, Howard, 3-0.

But despite the team nearly scoring one third of their total goals a season ago, Coach Alyssa Radu, and her team still aren’t satisfied.

“They felt last year the play was there but they just didn’t have the results behind it,
Radu said. “You need the results to feel good and in all honesty they don’t feel that they played as well as they should have and when you still win 4-1 and still feel that way that’s something you can build on.”

Senior midfielder Sandra Vacarino led UMBC to a season opening victory over Delaware State with a goal and an assist.

Senior midfielder Sandra Vacarino opened the teams scoring with a goal in just the sixth minute of action. Pittsburgh transfer Kelsi Morris played a ball into the team’s leading scorer last year, who tapped it into the far low corner.

It didn’t take long for the team to score their second goal as Vacarino flicked a ball to LeAnne Edgar for a goal following a throw-in in the tenth minute.

“I just think we have more persistence and urgency; we’re a little more hungry this year,” Vacarino said. “We also have a good attitude this year too so that’s not going to drag us down early.”

That attitude and hunger led to an offense that ripped off 14 shots, and consistently pressured the Hornet goalkeeper, who was forced to make three saves while conceding four goals before being taken out in the 72nd minute.

“We’re a little more confident, we took more outside shots and then a couple we just slipped through and got behind them,” Vacarino said. “We also had a lot of free kicks off the corners and outside the 18 that led to a lot of our goals.”

Another one of those goals that a free kick from outside the 18 led to was from senior defender Christine Sadowski, who was voted the team’s MVP after last season.

“I was just hoping for [the ball] to take a bad bounce off someone and it did and it was right in front of the goal and I couldn’t miss it,” Sadowski said.

While Sadowski had offensive success, the team captain also helped lead her team in an impressive defensive performance where they only allowed three shots, only one of which went in the goal.

“We just wanted to keep them from getting in front of us and get high pressure, and not let them get any shots off,” Sadowski said.

Junior forward LeAnne Edgar has always been an offensive threat for UMBC, but finally scored the first goal of her career.

The team’s fourth goal came from freshman Shannon McGuinness less than a minute after Sadowski scored. McGuinness’s goal came after Jessy Brown tapped her the ball following a corner kick from Nicole Clark. All three players involved were freshman.

“I think we’re balanced in a sense that we have great leadership and you’re combining that with young, hungry, tough, physical players, technically sounds, all bringing something else to the table,” Radu said.

The leadership she was referring come from senior captains Vacarino, Sadowski, Erin Johnson, who did not play in the game, and Edgar, who is only a junior.

Radu said: “I already see times where I’m like ‘Oh my gosh how am I going to replace players like that.’

“Christine, Sandra, and Erin have logged more minutes that any player in the last four or five years and that is invaluable because now when you put them in game situations they can handle it much better and there is a lot great trust for them to do their jobs and it helps me do my job better.”

Radu also said that the team was also much deeper than in years past, which she hopes will also help with their improvement.

“When you have that leadership and a deeper team…this is the deepest team, the most talented team that I’ve had in my three years, it allows everyone’s jobs to be a little easier so you can focus on the smaller parts of the game,” she said.

With a new sense of confidence in them the team will attempt to win their second straight game to open the season in two days in Philadelphia against Drexel.

“We don’t feel that we’re a finished product,” Radu said. “We still have a lot of improvement, we’re still hungry and we know this is just one game.”