After a tie against the St. Catherine University Wildcats on Tuesday, the UW-Eau Claire women’s soccer team played against Bethel University on Thursday, Sept. 22 to win with a shutout. This win brought the UW-Eau Claire women’s soccer team’s current record up to 4-3-1.

The Blugolds continue to defend their record of being undefeated at home.

Within the first three minutes, fourth-year physical education student Megan Hansen took a pass from fourth-year management and marketing student Maggie Conway and scored. Hansen’s goal at 2:54 put the Blugolds in the lead from the beginning of the game. 

Sean Yengo, head coach of the women’s soccer team, said, “We set some goals before the game. One was just to play good possession and soccer with patience and discipline.”

Yengo said that the team’s effort was outstanding on both sides of the ball, whether the players were in or out of possession.

“Patience, we’re in our buildup phase,” Yengo said. “We’re not looking to play the ball over the top and chase it. Something we talked about was finding more opportunities for players that are underneath the back line instead of just playing in behind the back line.”

Fourth-year exercise science and psych student Emma Stange said the team set goals before the game to score early.

“We really wanted to come out and score in that first five minutes because we’ve had a little bit of trouble scoring,” Stange said.

Hansen achieved this team goal by scoring within the first three minutes, which gave the Blugolds an edge in the game from very early on.

Near the end of the first half, third-year special education and elementary education student Sydney Spencer scored at 36:14 with an assist from first-year elementary education student Alena Tikalsky. 

The Blugolds ended the first half with a score of 2-0.

The UW-Eau Claire women’s soccer team defense worked for a game-winning performance in the second half. Second-year undecided student Kennedy Boll deflected the two shots made on the goal, effectively shutting out the Bethel University Royals 2-0. 

“I think we possessed almost the whole game and if we got caught too far forward we recycled,” Hansen said.

Stange said the team’s effort has been great and emphasized the calculated patience seen in every player. 

Hansen also regarded the team’s performance highly and noted that every player was playing with each other and working very cleanly together. Hansen said if mistakes were made, the team worked really hard to make up for them and get the ball back.

“I think it was good for us to get the dominant win. We had a tie on Tuesday so it was good to end on a high note before fall break,” Stange said.

Stange said the game’s results had boosted the morale of the team before their off weekend and ended things on a high streak.

“Next game is at 7:30 (p.m), Wednesday, on September 28,“ Stange said. “Come on out for another win.”

For more information about game times and locations, visit the 2022 women’s soccer schedule.

O’Brien can be reached at [email protected].