Syracuse Women’s Soccer team dominated Cornell University in a 3-0 win Thursday night at the SU Soccer Stadium.
Syracuse took possession of the game early on, allowing them to set a fast pace Cornell could not keep up with. Head Coach Phil Wheddon [5] encouraged his players to keep this tempo. “We played Army this past week and we were dominating Army for a large portion of the game and we scored an early goal and sort of sat back and allowed them to get back into the game, so I didn’t want the same thing to happen tonight,” Wheddon said.
During the 21st minute, Syracuse midfielder Kate Hostage [6] was knocked to the ground in the box, giving the Orange a penalty kick. Defender Taylor Bennett [7] stepped up to take the penalty, and made it in the left corner. This was Bennett’s first goal of the season.
Coach Wheddon, swiftly chose her to take the penalty. “I actually thought I don’t want to be in the goal when Taylor’s kicking the ball so she’s an obvious choice to take it,” Wheddon said.
Bennett says the team practices penalty kicks and the she felt confident in taking the kick.
With a little over a minute left in the first half, Syracuse freshman Kate Donovan [8] found the back of the net with an assist from Opal Curless [9]. The score was 2-0 at the end of the half.
During the 2nd half of the game, Syracuse had multiple on target shots, but none of them made it in the goal until the 53rd minute. Syracuse forward Kate Donovan scored her 2nd goal of the game and the season.
“It definitely gave me a lot of confidence playing forward, and getting two goals today definitely helps a lot,” Donovan said. Coach Wheddon realizes that Donovan and the rest of the freshmen players stepped up tonight to help their team win.
“We got a fantastic freshmen class and its not often that you can start 4 freshmen and today we did,” Wheddon said. He says every freshman is making an impact. “We try not to have freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors. We have to play the players that are playing the best and if it happens to be the freshmen, then so be it, they’ll play,” Wheddon said.
Syracuse’s next game is Sunday at the SU Soccer Stadium at 7 p.m. against Fairfield.
