Box Score WILLIAMSTOWN, MA — Last year in the regular season, the Ephs needed nearly 98 minutes to break the 0-0 deadlock against the Cardinals of Wesleyan College, this year they needed just over ten, as sophomore Audrey Thomas showed once again why she is the leading scorer in the NESCAC, as she grabbed her 9th and 10th goals of the season to send the Ephs on their way to a comfortable 4-0 win on a sunny Saturday afternoon at Cole Field.
Thomas opened up the scoring for the Ephs in the sixth minute, after senior winger Louisa Costa jetted down the right flank, showing her deft skill on the ball to beat her defender and get to the touchline to send a low, rolling pass to Thomas in the center of the box, who buried a right-footed effort into the left panel of the goal that Cardinal senior keeper Jessica Tollman had little chance to keep out.
The Cardinals had a chance to equalize just past the twenty-minute mark, as sophomore Cardinal Jennifer Cascino stole a ball off an Eph defender, leaving only Eph senior keeper Hannah Van Wetter to beat, but Van Wetter did well to close down the angles and make a nice save to preserve the Ephs' 1-0 lead.
Eight minutes later, however, Thomas doubled the Ephs' lead and broke into double-digits for goals scored on the year, following a lovely ball over the top from Kirshe that allowed the fleet-of-foot Thomas to show off her lightning-quick pace to beat both Cardinal center backs to the ball, round Tollman, and dispatch the ball into an empty net.
The Cardinals began to see more of the ball towards the end of the first half, as they looked for a way back into the game, but the Ephs were the next to have a chance at goal five minutes into the first half. Thomas once again showed off her great industry to beat several defenders to the touchline on the left side of the goal, sending in a ball to fellow sophomore Kristi Kirshe at the near post. Kirshe collected, turned, and attempted a chip of the freshly introduced junior keeper Rachel Hobert, but her chip dribbled just wide of the right post.
Kirshe's chance was merely a warning shot, as junior Linsey Vandergrift all but wrapped up the game for the Ephs in the 76th minute. Senior Sarah Brink carved out a beautiful through ball to match the run of Vandergrift, knifing between the two Cardinal center backs, leaving her one-on-one with Hobert, but Vandergrift's nifty finish was too good, lifting the ball over Hobert's flailing right arm to bag her first goal of the season and give the Ephs a three-goal cushion.
Eph senior Alex McInturf added a fourth to the scoreboard and a third to her tally this season in the dying moments that was one of the goals of the season thus far. McInturf received a pass from freshman Dani Sim with just over a minute remaining on the right side and pulled up from nearly thirty yards out to blast a rocket with the outside of her right foot, that dipped just under the crossbar and over the outstretched arms of Hobert, notching into the right corner of the goal.
After the game, Eph head coach Michelyne Pinard lauded her team's solid performance: "All week we have known that, as a team, we had to sort through who we are as a team, and I think today we made another step toward figuring that out. I thought moment-by-moment throughout the game we got better. Lindsey [Vandergrift] is a natural striker, and she played very well up top today, and our overall defensive shape was also very good today."
With the win, the Ephs (9-1-0, NESCAC 4-1-0) extend their regular season win-streak against the Cardinals (1-8-1, NESCAC 0-5-1) to 29 in-a-row, with the last time the Cardinals taking a point off the Ephs being in 1985.
The Cardinals have the rest of the weekend off, taking the field next against away against Elms College on Wednesday at 6 PM EDT. The Ephs, however, return to action for their second home NESCAC game of the weekend, against top-of-the-table rivals Bowdoin at 12 PM EDT. If the Ephs win they will pull to within three points of Amherst having played one less game than Amherst has.
