The Massachusetts women’s soccer team continued its winning ways against UMass Lowell on Sunday afternoon at Rudd Field, notching their third straight shutout in a 1-0 win over the River Hawks. The shutout was UMass goalkeeper Bella Mendoza’s 16th career clean sheet.
Grad student Karina Groff secured UMass’ victory after Hannah Peric attempted to score a header from a corner kick in the 51st minute. Groff found the rebound and tipped it over Lowell goalkeeper Taylor Burgess’ shoulder to give the Minutewomen the advantage.
“[Peric] did her job to put the ball back across the goal and then [Groff] showed incredible composure and skill to be able to turn and side volley it in,” head coach Jason Dowiak said.
Burgess had her work cut out for her as UMass shot at her net 15 more times over the rest of the second half. The Minutewomen ended the game with 28 total shots, 11 of which were on target. Lowell shot at Mendoza’s net two times after conceding the goal, while having 11 shots over the duration of the game.
After Groff’s goal, the Minutewomen were awarded six more corner kicks, which allowed them to set up for many shots on Burgess’ net. Many of these shots came from sophomore Caroline Dickson, who finished the afternoon with four shots.
“We try to be organized in [corner kicks] but honestly once we get this far into the season a lot of times it is the players responding back to the organizational pieces that we do throughout the early part of the year,” Dowiak said. “Then individuals doing their job well.”
The first half of playing time was action packed. In the 16th minute, senior Ashley Lamond scored what seemed to be a goal with an incredible bicycle kick, but the goal was disallowed after the referees determined that Lowell’s Kelli Buckley had been fouled during the play.
“It kind of got everyone going, I think when we play we always want to get the first goal,” Lamond said. “That just gives us our momentum to keep going, we feel like we have an upper hand on the other team. So although [the goal] didn’t count … [it] kind of gave us that momentum to keep going.”
The physicality of the game continued to progress towards the end of the first half when UMass’ Grace Pinkus received a yellow card for pushing a River Hawk to the ground outside of the penalty box. After the awarded free kick, Lowell’s Laura Cetina was also booked for elbowing a Minutewoman to the ground while jumping for the ball.
The final booking of the game came in the second half against River Hawks’ Diana Jedrychowski for blocking the Minutewomen’s movement up the field.
“We love that we’re home on Thursday, because we’ve been great at home over the last two years, undefeated in regular play at least,” Dowiak said. “I think it’s what we talked about at the end of the game, all about how we take care of our bodies and how we prepare mentally and physically before Thursday. Obviously a really big [game] but we love that we get to start the conference play off with Saint Louis.”
The Minutewomen will be back in action on Thursday Sept. 19 at 4 p.m. to face Saint Louis University at Rudd Field.
Emma Bensley can be reached at [email protected].
