The Massachusetts women’s soccer team closed out its non-conference schedule Sunday afternoon with a 1-0 victory over Siena at Rudd Field.
The lone goal of the game came during the 63rd minute off the foot of Minutewomen (5-5) leading scorer, Moa Mattsson. It was her fifth goal of the season.
Creating the opportunity for Mattsson were teammates Alyssa D’Arcy and Jess Howe off of a corner kick. It was both D’Arcy and Howe’s second assist of the season.
The corner found Howe, who sent the ball in towards goal. D’Arcy then tipped the ball along the way right into Mattsson’s wheelhouse.
UMass coach Ed Matz credited his team’s more aggressive outlook in the second half with creating the only goal of the game.
“One of the things we talked about at halftime was getting ourselves in a better position around the goal,” Matz said. “I felt like in the first half we were taking ourselves out of a lot of dangerous situations and taking ourselves away from the goal. So we were trying to get more numbers in front of the goalkeeper and I tell the girls all the time, goals like this can happen all the time if you get enough numbers in front of the goal.”
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The Minutewomen had their fair amount of chances during the first half, but were unable to convert on any.
UMass finished the game with 14 shots, four of which were on target. Eight of those shots came in the first half.
Both Tori Souza and Jackie Bruno led the way with three shots apiece, while Mattsson and Hlin Gunnlaugsdottir each had two.
Mattsson’s second shot came on a golden opportunity for her second goal of the game, but she mishandled the ball and was unable to get her full strength behind the shot.
Also key in the Minutewomen’s victory was the play of goalkeeper Emily Cota.
Cota (3-1), who made her fourth-straight start after starting the season on the bench behind Stephanie Gordon, came up with five big saves, and in the process, recorded her third shutout of the season.
In fact, Cota has yet to allow a goal scored by the opposing team. The only goal she has allowed so far came against Brown, in a 1-0 loss, and it was an own goal.
Cota was especially tested on two occasions during the game.
The first came during the first half when the Saints (4-5) won three straight corner kicks. The first and final corners were handled by her teammates, but on the second corner, Cota tipped the ball away, preventing a scoring opportunity for Siena.
The second came during an offensive flurry by the Saints after UMass had taken the lead in the second half.
Matz was happy with the way his team grinded out a victory. He said that these are the sort of games they won last year and that the team needs to come away with victories in this year in order to have a successful season.
“We grinded it out,” Matz said. “I’ve been telling this team all year long that, especially young teams like this, we have to find a way to win these games that could go either way. Until you find a way to win these games you’re not going to have a successful year. So I just told the girls that we found a way to win today. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t pretty, but along the way … we got a goal and that’s the biggest thing and we held on and got a win against a good team.”
The Minutewomen now will venture into Atlantic 10 conference play next weekend with a pair of home games against Dayton on Friday and Xavier on Sunday.
Cameron McDonough can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @MDC_McDonough.
