Revolutionaries Dominate Delaware State 7-0 in Opener

Photo credit: Mitchell Layton

By Matthew Brooks (@brooksie1219)

GW women’s soccer opened their season at home on Thursday in a performance that could be best described as revolutionary. 

The Revs’ impressive seven goal performance had six unique goal scorers, the first of which was redshirt freshman midfielder Alana Beasley. It only took her two short minutes to find the back of the net off of a nice pass from sophomore midfielder Aoi Kataoka.

GW defenders would capitalize on corners for goals two and three, as junior defender Maggie Mockenhaupt put in a header in the 13th minute, and junior defender Maya Goudeseune hammered home a second chance rebound in the 20th minute on what would be her only shot attempt of the game. Two more goals would come in minutes 35 and 43 from senior forward Lauren Prentice and freshman midfielder Abby Caoile respectively, to all but put the game away heading into halftime.

In the second half GW’s offense slowed down, but their defense did not. Delaware State was only able to get off three shots off in the entire second half, only two of which were on goal. Frequent interceptions from the Revs made it so that the Hornets struggled to string more than three passes together without turning the ball over.

In the 59th minute freshman midfielder Alexa Meinen became the last Revolutionary to join the goal party off an assist from Prentice. And after what felt like a long 25 minutes without a goal, Caoile notched a brace on her second shot attempt of the game in the 89th minute to give GW their seventh and final goal.

Sophomore goalkeeper Grace Crowe did everything that was asked of her, coming up with six saves in the first 55 minutes before she was pulled for junior Ainsley Lumpe, who saved the only Hornets shot on goal for the remainder of the game. Crowe’s only real test came in the last minute of the first half where she made an excellent diving save and stopped a rebound shot attempt from Delaware State forward Alani Lawrence. Crowe’s highlight-reel-save to preserve the shutout drew a big roar from the 100 or so fans in attendance on the Vern.

While Delaware State didn’t leave the nation’s capital with much to look positively on, a hat must be tipped to keeper Ashley Maribo. Although she allowed all seven goals, she played through all 90 minutes and made a staggering 16 saves, few of which came easy, making GW earn all of their goals. Any performance from Maribo that was less than stellar and GW could have gone well into double digits in the goal column.

Aside from the dramatic margin of victory, the match against Delaware State was historic for the school and athletics program at large, serving as the first ever GW sporting event under the new Revolutionaries moniker. After all was said and done, women’s soccer ushered in a new era of GW athletics, and did it in style.