The California Lutheran University Women’s Soccer team secured its eighth victory in a row with a 2-0 win against the Occidental Tigers on Wednesday, Sept. 27. The win improves the Regals’ record to 4-0 in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, second only to Pomona-Pitzer, who sit atop the conference with a 5-0 record.
Junior midfielder Adriana Maroney scored the first goal of the night in the 34th minute, which was assisted by Elisa Shott, another junior midfielder.
“I was really excited, I felt good energy from practice. We’ve been doing a lot of possession and taking shots,” Maroney said. “I knew that coming into this game we would handle business and we did.”
Cal Lutheran doubled their lead one minute later as sophomore winger Ryan Kaneko scored the home team’s second goal. Once again, the goal was assisted by Shott, bringing her assists to two against the Tigers.
“All day I had been in such a good mood and had no idea why, but I just felt like ‘Oh my god, I’m going to score today.’ I felt really confident and I was training really hard so I really felt like I was ready,” Kaneko said.
While the Regals would not score for the remainder of the game, they kept the visitors at bay to see out a 2-0 victory and continue their unbeaten start to the season.
“After that first goal, I blacked out a little because I was just like ‘Wow, that just went in, no way!’ So I was just really excited,” Kaneko said.
Cal Lutheran took a total of 17 shots throughout the game compared to Occidental’s one, which was saved by junior goalkeeper Logan Duford.
“We had a game plan coming into the first half and we executed the game plan. We didn’t finish probably as many as we could have in the first half, but created a lot of great chances in the game,” Head Women’s Soccer Coach Frank Marino said.
Despite the win, the Regals wanted to score more goals.
“I think we wanted to take more shots, create more opportunities,” Maroney said. “We were just trying to keep the ball, keep our composure and we were trying to score more goals, which didn’t happen, but that’s okay.”
The Regals have been dominant this season, averaging 16.1 shots per game and scoring 18 in their nine games so far. Their opponents, on the other hand, have scored one goal and averaged 4.5 shots per game.
“At half-time, we just talked about continuing what we were doing. What we were doing was effective. They had one shot in the entire game, so if we can defend like that…we’re gonna win almost all of our games,” Marino said.
The Regals will look to continue their winning streak as they travel to Pasadena to take on the Caltech Beavers on Saturday, Sept. 30 at 11 a.m.
