The women’s soccer team continued its shutout streak on Sunday, recording its seventh consecutive game without giving up a goal in a 5-0 blowout against Seton Hall University at Shaw Field.
The Hoyas (9-2-1, 3-0 Big East) returned home after their 4-0 win against the DePaul University Blue Demons (5-6-1, 1-1-1 Big East) last Thursday and carried their momentum forward in conference play against a weaker Pirates (0-7-4, 0-1-2 Big East) squad.
Despite controlling the pace of play and holding the advantage in shots, Georgetown held scoreless through the game’s 43rd minute.
“I just thought the first half we were probably 60 percent. We weren’t as sharp as we needed to be,” Head Coach Dave Nolan said. “We talked at halftime about a couple of things I thought we needed to do a little bit better.”
The Blue and Gray finally got on the board in the 44th minute with a long shot from the top corner of the box by sophomore defender Meaghan Nally, who was named Big East Conference Defensive Player of the Week last week.
“I’ve been working on that shot for a little bit with [Assistant Coach] Kristen [Meier], and I was hoping it would go in,” Nally said. “When it did, it was a nice little surprise.”
Nolan recognized the importance of scoring the first goal before halftime.
“If [Seton Hall] goes into halftime 0-0, they have a lot of confidence and they now have a game plan that they’re sticking to,” Nolan said. “Getting that first goal before the break was huge, because it just puts a seed of doubt in their head.”
The second half was much kinder to the Hoyas, who dominated possession and created scoring opportunities at will.
In the 55th minute, junior forward Caitlin Farrell streaked down the right sideline and crossed the ball into the box, finding the head of redshirt sophomore forward Amanda Carolan to put the Hoyas up 2-0.
Less than a minute later, two seniors connected to make the score 3-0, as defender Taylor Pak’s shot from midfielder Rachel Corboz’s corner found the back of the net.
“It was great for Amanda to get another goal; it’s good for her confidence,” Nolan said. “We’ve been working to try and get more off corner kicks, and we got another one today, which is huge.”
A comfortable three-goal cushion allowed Nolan to make substitutions and rest his starters.
“You want to try and give some minutes to some kids that maybe need some minutes,” Nolan said. “That’s what you hope for, in those moments; those kids do enough to prove they deserve more minutes.”
One of those players was freshman forward Jenna Menta, who finished off the scoring for Georgetown with a pair of goals in less than a minute.
“As a forward, my personal goal is to always score a goal, so it was nice to get out there and score two goals. It makes me feel like myself again,” Menta said.
On the day, Hoyas led the Pirates 27-4 in shots and 8-0 in corner kicks.
Georgetown returns to action on Thursday at home against Big East rival Creighton University (2-9-1, 0-3-0 Big East).
Kickoff is slated for 3 p.m. at Shaw Field.
