Saturday was a glorious day for the Suffolk University women’s soccer team, who earned its first victory of the season by defeating Simmons College at Dilboy Stadium. The GNAC victory was a huge relief for the women as the start of the season has been nothing but a struggle. Going in to this match, the Lady Rams had suffered a heartbreaking 3-2 overtime defeat against Emerson College. At the same time, the overall team statistic screamed 0-5. Having only scored two goals in five games, the Lady Rams were eager to put an end to the depressing situation. In order to defeat the Simmons Sharks, Suffolk had to put up a real fight.
Suffolk got a great start to the game as Taylor Miranda scored the first goal of the in the 16th minute to put her team ahead 1-0.
In the rest of the first half, Suffolk was under great pressure as Simmons would dominate the match with four shots and three corner kicks. In the end, it led to a score for the goal-hungry Sharks. On a corner kick in the 37th minute, Kristyn Heuslein put the ball in the net with a header off the corner for Simmons tying the game to the score of 1-1. Luckily the Rams were saved by the bell as it was time for a break before the second half of the match.
The break could not have come at a better moment as it was obvious that Simmons created momentum and could have scored at least a couple of goals if it was not for an extremely well-playing Suffolk goalkeeper in Melissa Brouillette.
During the halftime break, Suffolk head coach Ernst Cleophat must have said something that really motivated the girls. The way Suffolk played in the first 13 minutes of the second half was impressive. In these minutes, the Lady Rams played some of their best and most entertaining soccer this season which was rewarded in the 57th minute when forward Binglei Zhou scored the match winning goal that secured the victory for the team.
The rest of the match was a true thriller full of intensity and a level of suspense not seen in any of Suffolk’s previous games this season. With 13 shots, Simmons was doing everything they could in order to get that equalizer, but the performance of Brouillette, who made ninegreat saves out of the 10 on targe during the match helped the Lady Rams secure the win.
After the match, Cleophat and his team celebrated as if they had just won the GNAC championship. Everyone on the team was beyond happy with the well deserved win.
“This was a fantastic performance. I want to congratulate the whole team. The intensity was high throughout the whole match and now I believe we have found our rhythm. The team spirit is great and I’m happy that we fixed the things we needed to fix,” said Cleophat.
It does look like the team has improved on the things it needed to. The Lady Rams have finally solved their goal-scoring problems as forwards Zhou and Miranda put the ball in net while Brouillette made sure the girls did not concede 10 goals in their own net.
“I told her how much she had matured and grown since last year. She has been fantastic, just excellent” praised Cleophat.
The combination of incredible individual performances such as Brouillette’s and the overall team spirit are what makes the Lady Rams such a powerful team. The Suffolk squad was simply too much to handle for Simmons in the end. Coach Cleophat will hope to carry this momentum into the coming games on the team’s schedule.
