The Taylor women’s soccer team was back in action last weekend, picking up a 3-2 win over the Mount Vernon Nazarene Cougars.
This game brought plenty of action from start to finish. Just under seven minutes into the game, senior Morgan Orme fired home the Trojans’ first goal of the day off of junior Kate Kortenhoeven’s assist.
Just ten minutes later, Orme provided her second goal contribution of the day with an assist to junior Erin Teevans, who finished a one-on-one opportunity against the MVNU keeper.
With a two-goal lead, the Trojans seemed to be in complete control of the game, outshooting MVNU almost 2:1.
“We were playing really well.” Head Coach Scott Stan said. “We were executing the game plan extremely well.”
Right before halftime, the Cougars managed to pull one back from a one touch shot that went in past the left post. Taylor went into halftime with their lead intact, but there appeared to be life left in the game.
Within six minutes after halftime, MVNU scored the equalizer. With about 40 minutes left to play, the two Crossroads opponents were on level pegging.
At this point, the Trojans needed to shift their strategy. “I think we all knew we had to dig deeper and fight harder.” Sophomore Hannah Dempsey said.“We stuck together as a team rather than feeling defeated, and it showed in our final part of the game."
Almost 30 minutes passed by without either team breaking the deadlock. Then, in the 78th minute, Dempsey made a run out of the back to carry the ball forward and put a cross into the middle.
After soaring over the defenders, the cross found its way to the back post, where Teevans was waiting to gather the ball and punch it in. This sequence ended up deciding the game and made it three wins out of three for the Trojans this season.
“I knew we had been dominating and deserved the win, but I just kept thinking we really needed to find the back of the net.” Dempsey said about the play leading to her assist. “Last year we played MVNU in the first round of the Crossroads league tournament and lost in penalty kicks. We were the better team then, and we were definitely the stronger team this time around. I saw my opportunity to join the attack and went for it.”
Following this game, the Trojans had scored 12 goals in their first three games, conceding only two in that same time period. Their leading scorer for the game was Erin Teevans, with two goals on the day and four goals already this season.
Building off of last year’s performance, Coach Stan and his team are aiming for another national tournament appearance in the Spring.
“We need to have a really strong conference season. We’d like to host games in the conference tournament, and hopefully turn that into another appearance at nationals,” Stan said.
The Trojans were back in action this Wednesday against the second ranked team in the nation, Marian, falling 4-0.
With three nationally ranked opponents in their next four games, Taylor certainly has a difficult and exciting run ahead of them, so make sure to come out and support the team.
