This weekend marked the start of the 2006 season for the women’s soccer team, who opened up a road trip at College Park Field. The women, who had a rough go of it last season, were looking for a nice start to this year.
Saturday, the women faced Keene State University in their season opener. The first half of play was dry in that neither team scored, and it was evident in both teams’ efforts that this would be a defensive struggle for the entirety of the game.
Keene State held a 5-1 shot advantage over Rensselaer for the duration of the first half, yet like their opponent, was not able to find any way to score.
Ten minutes into the second half, Tara Wagner, a Keene State senior, drilled a cross from freshman Kendra Spencer from 25 yards out into the far right corner of the goal to break the scoring drought. Her goal would be the only points of the game for either team.
RPI managed five shots in an effort to tie the game, but none were able to find the net, as Keene State was able to fend off the Red Hawk attack with the help of freshman goalie Liz Rosen. She earned the first shutout of her career.
Rensselaer returned to action on Sunday, but again had trouble finding ways to score. Fortunately for the Red Hawks, SUNY New Paltz struggled offensively as well.
Throughout the course of the game, it was the Hawks of New Paltz who held the advantage in terms of shots attempted as they managed 16 compared to RPI’s 10. However, senior goalie Tara Marandino made eight saves, including a clutch snag in the 80th minute off a direct kick, to crush any thoughts that New Paltz had of scoring.
Overtime was needed to try and send one of the teams home with a win, but with both teams standing strong, the long battle continued. It looked as if the Red Hawks might be able to steal the victory as they had three shots on goal in the extra period, including two in the 99th minute, but again, Rensselaer’s efforts were thwarted. The game ended in a 0-0 tie with Marandino making eight saves for the Red Hawks while sophomore, Sarah Boccard, finished with four for New Paltz.
Though RPI finished the weekend 0-1-1, Head Coach Eric Miller was very much able to find positives in the play of his team. “We’re much improved this year and I think that our defense played extremely well, and was in fact our strength in the first two games,” commented Miller. He added, “Last year we gave up a lot of goals early, and for us to give up one goal in two games, that’s a great job.”
While the defense was steady, the offense struggled a bit. “We have to find out how we are going to create scoring opportunities, and to do this, we need to understand how to break down the defense of our opponents,” said Miller. He would go on to say, “Right now we’re looking to pass too much when we really need to be concerned with getting shots. We just need that shoot first mentality, and that’s fixable.”
So the youthful Red Hawk team was able to learn a great deal about themselves coming out of this opening weekend, and will hopefully be able to correct their ways in the upcoming week. RPI returns to action on Thursday when they take on Russell Sage, and will be playing again on Saturday versus Alfred University. Both games will be at home on Harkness Field.
