By Heather Monahan
Assistant Features Editor
The women’s soccer team secured two wins last weekend against Little Three teams to bring their record up to 3-6-1. Tonight, the Bonnies will play at LaSalle (6-3-0) in their Atlantic 10 conference opener at 7 p.m.
Assistant coach Morie Kephart said they’re expecting a very tough game. She said the game could possibly only be determined by only a goal.
“It’s going to be a 90 minute battle,” she said. “They’re always a hard team to play.”
Freshman midfielder/forward Amanda Gulli said LaSalle’s field poses a difficulty for Bonaventure because it’s smaller than McGraw-Jennings field.
“Their field is much smaller than ours, and we have to adapt to that,” said Gulli. “We might have to play differently. We can’t really spread out the field because the width is much smaller.”
Kephart said to prepare for the game, the team has been getting used to playing on a harder surface by holding practices in the gym and on the baseball field, a turf field.
“It’s the little factors that’ll make the ball move faster and will make the space smaller,” sophomore midfielder Brittany Charles said. “It puts a big difference into the game and I think we’ve done a good job preparing ourselves.”
Gulli also said the team has been working on playing to the feet more.
“We worked on not taking too many touches,” Gulli said. “Taking one touch and getting it away from you since it’s such a small field.”
Kephart said mental preparation is something they’ve worked on leading up to the conference opener.
Being mentally prepared is one of the things Charles said helped give them the two wins this past weekend.
“We never got down, and we never said ‘this game is over.’ We played every minute,” Charles said. “We need to play every minute for 90 minutes with that intensity.”
Kephart said the team’s ability to bounce back shows how much heart the team has.
“We showed a lot of heart coming back from deficits,” Kephart said. “I think overall as a team we believe the whole time that we can win and that’s something hard to do, especially with the way we started out the season.”
Kephart also said winning against their Little Three rivals was a great feeling and that it helped to increase their confidence boost.
“I think, for bragging rights in itself it’s a really good feeling, and the fact that you see these teams every year. It is a really good feeling to win,” Kephart said. “Especially with the way we started, to beat the last two rivals is a great feeling.”
Molly Curry agreed the rivalry gave them the determination they needed to secure the victories.
“We really had a desire to win higher than ever before because of the rivalry,” Curry said.
Friday night, the Bonnies beat Niagara (5-4-0) at home, 4-3. Freshman forward Abby Maiello and sophomore midfielder/defender Jordan Calbria scored a goal each while redshirt senior Shannon Van Riper scored on a penalty and the final goal in the game, securing their win.
On Sunday, the Bonnies traveled to Canisius (2-8-0) to secure a 3-2 win with goals from Shannon Van Riper, Molly Curry, and Caitlin MacConnell.
“It’s definitely a confidence booster to win three games before you go into conference,” said Kephart. “We scored a lot of needed goals. We don’t feel like that’s a road block anymore.”
Charles also said winning three games will help them going into conference play.
“It feels good, in the confidence sense, going into the tournament with the past three wins, especially with two of them being away,” Charles said.
Curry, a sophomore forward/midfielder/defender, said the team is ready to prove their rough start does not define them as a team.
“We’re ready for any opponents and to really show how well we can play despite having a tough start,” Curry said.
Kephart said she has a lot of confidence in the team, especially with the way they’ve been playing.
“I think this team has the potential to do a lot and to do big things,” Kephart said. “Being a young team, we just need to show up to every game.”
