LAFAYETTE HILL, Pa.- The Bloomsburg University women's soccer team overpowered Chestnut Hill 8-1 on the road Thursday night (Aug. 31) to open their 2017 season.
BU peppered the Chestnut Hill net early on, before a ball off a Griffin defender's head bounced right to senior captain
Rachel Yenney (Collegeville, Pa./Perkiomen Valley) in the ninth minute. Yenney stashed it home to open the scoring. Chestnut Hill's Sabrina Shinkowitz knotted the game at one less than a minute later.
The teams would trade offensive chances for most of the half, with most of the chances favoring Bloomsburg. In the 42
nd minute,
Lauren Hoelke (Blackwood, N.J./Highland Regional) found
Sam Rodkey (Selinsgrove, Pa./Selinsgrove) who scored to put the visitors up 2-1 just before the half. BU took its 2-1 lead to the break.
Junior
Allie Barber (Pittston Township, Pa./Pittston Area) wasted little time getting the second half started, knifing her way through the Griffin defense to pad BU's lead to 4-1 in the 50
th minute. Barber's goal sparked five more tallies from the visitors in the second half, aided by a Chestnut Hill own goal.
BU kept pushing the tempo following Barber's goal, and Yenney served a long ball into close range of the Griffins net. The pass found
Mackenzie Gebhardt (Pennsburg, Pa./Upper Perkiomen), who netted her first of the year and stretched BU's lead to 5-1 in the 53
rd minute. The own goal came in the 57
th minute to give Bloomsburg a 6-1 lead. Yenney would score her second of the game in the 60
th minute when a loose ball deflected right to her feet off of a throw-in. Hoelke scored her first of the year 27 seconds later to make it 7-1.
Jamie Marsico (Elizabethtown, Pa./Elizabethtown) tallied her first collegiate goal in the 87
th minute to make it 8-1.
Yenney scored twice on six shots, and also tallied one assist. Barber, Gebhardt, Hoelke (one goal, one assist), Rodkey and Marsico also scored in the contest. BU out-shot Chestnut Hill 34-13, including 19-8 in shots on goal.
Jenna Hawkins (Hamburg, Pa./Fleetwood) (1-0) made two saves in her first win of 2017.
Olivia Schantz (Schnecksville, Pa./Parkland) also recorded 22 minutes between the pipes in the win, making five saves.
BU gets a short rest before they turn around and open conference play at IUP on Saturday (Sept. 2). Kickoff is set for 1:30 p.m.
