By Gavin Lindahl
Staff Writer
After a loss to Akron and a win over Cleveland State, the women’s soccer team is finishing a four-game home stand and taking to the road this weekend for the first time in about two weeks.
Coach Steve Brdarski said he is happy with his team’s performance over the stretch at home, which saw them go 2-1-1.
Despite being satisfied with the team’s performance before conference play starts, the loss to Akron isn’t being ignored by Brdarski. After a lackadaisical first half, which saw the Bonnies surrender 10 unanswered shots, Brdarski said he believes the schedule caught up with the squad.
“You wonder about our week. We played Sunday. We played Tuesday. –Sunday we played overtime, – so I think we looked just a little bit fatigued,” Brdarski said. “We changed some things up; we went after them a little more, created some chances and [scored] a good goal.”
The Bonnies’ second half push against the Zips, however, is not unique to that match. The squad rallied last Sunday against Cleveland State, scoring three goals within seven minutes in the second half to give them the win.
This trend in late-game pushes is something that Brdarski believes could be a characteristic of the team going forward. However, he thinks it may be a little bit too early to tell if this will hold up into October when Atlantic 10 play starts.
“When our backs were up against the wall [Sunday], we started playing our best soccer,” Brdarski said. “I think we’ve shown that [we play best when coming from behind] a lot in the last four games. Maybe not necessarily our best [overall], but, when we do go down, we’re not going to get shutout.”
Senior goaltender Christina Sarokon agreed with her coach.
“We might have had a bit of a slow start, but we never stopped working,” Sarokon said. “We showed persistence and discipline in that game, and we never put our heads down. We worked until the last second, and it got us the victory.”
Several players have stood out to Brdarski over the past few games. Perhaps most noticeable is senior forward Abby Maiello. Maiello was named A-10 co-player of the week, sharing the honor with Rhode Island’s Ari Stanton. Maiello has tallied four goals in six games, leading the Bonnies in both goals and points.
Sophomore forward Danielle Vis and freshman forward Jessica Scruggs have also stood out to Brdarski, especially in last Sunday’s game. Vis’ assist on Scruggs’ game-tying goal was supplemented by the game-winning goal minutes later, marking the second time in her two-year career with Bona’s that she’s recorded both a goal and assist in a single match.
Scruggs’ point-production after coming in as a 69th minute sub was second only to her impressive playmaking, according to Brdarski, which is something special to see from a freshman.
“Scruggs could’ve easily shot on that first goal,” Brdarski said about Maiello’s tally Sunday, which was set up by Scruggs. “She could have said, ‘I’m in the box, I’m shooting.’ And I think she could have had an argument to do that, but it was the pass she made to set up an awesome goal. She drew everybody over and played it over to Abby [Maiello] for an easy goal. Perfect pass, and when you label that as a play by a freshmen, that creates something we’re going to use more often.”
Scruggs, Vis, Maiello and the rest of the women’s team will have more chances to stand out to Brdarski tonight at 7 p.m. against Niagara University and Sunday against Cornell University at 3:30 p.m. This will leave just one match before the Bonnies enter conference play.
“The biggest thing in the A-10 is you have to go on the road and win points; you can’t go somewhere and come back with nothing to show for it,” Brdarski said. “At the end of the day, the only stat that I truly care about is that final stat; how many goals they had and how many goals we had.”
