Lady Monarchs get a season high seven goals
Written By: Kathryn Mason
Staff Writer
With Friday’s win over James Madison, Old Dominion officially clinched the top seed in the upcoming Colonial Athletic Association tournament. The Lady Monarchs scored a season high seven goals and junior goalkeeper Devon Seifert talliedher sixteenth win for the season. With the win for the Lady Monarchs and a loss for Hofstra, Old Dominion will have the privilege of hosting the CAA tournament. The Lady Monarchs are 6-0 overall in CAA action.
JMU came out charging with energy at the start of the game and it proved to pay off four minutes in. JMU was awarded their first of two corners and they didn’t hesitate to capitalize on it. With a shot from the top of the circle, No. 3 Lindsay Cutchins deflected the ball off her stick into the back of the goal to put the Lady Dukes up 1-0.
A sudden hush quickly came over the 200-plus crowd of spectators as ODU trailed for only the third time in the season. It took a while for the Lady Monarch offense to get a jump, but once Senior Rebecca Condie scored on a penalty corner to tie the game up, there was no looking back. Condie would score again in the second half to put the Lady Monarchs up by four. Midfielder Stephanie Kratzer, who had a career high three assists, would get the assist on both of Condie’s goals.
Less than five minutes later, Forward Maarje van Rijswijk dribbled the ball along the right baseline somehow finding the weak spot in Dukes’ defense and scored, giving Rijswijk an unassisted goal and ODU their first lead.
Soon enough, Katie Nearhouse scored her fifth goal of the season, with the assist from Kratzer, giving the Lady Monarchs a comfortable two goal lead going into halftime.
Coming out of halftime, the Lady Dukes coaching staff tried to change the pace by taking out their starting keeper Margo Savage and replacing her with sophomore keeper Stephanie Tarafas. This move may have hurt the Dukes more than helping them.
Wanting to capitalize on the Lady Dukes mistakes, Old Dominion scored three goals within a time span of six minutes. All three goals came from three different Lady Monarchs: No. 23 Kelsey Smither, Condie, and van Rijswijk. With a little under 10 minutes to go, the Lititz, PA native Kathryn Kirk would score to seal the Lady Monarchs victory.
Old Dominion outshot James Madison 15-3 with four shots coming from senior Emma Batten, and the Lady Monarchs were given eight penalty corners to the Dukes’ two. Five of the seven Lady Monarch goals were from penalty corners, with three goals being unassisted.
With the win, Old Dominion (16-1) improved their conference record to 6-0. JMU (6-9) falls to2-4 in CAA action. CAA tournament action will be from Nov. 3 to Nov. 6.
