After a rare week off, Trinity women’s soccer continued to right the ship after an early-season loss. The Tigers defeated Concordia University 4-0 on Sept. 21. In last year’s victory against Concordia, Trinity scored just one goal. This year, the Tigers tallied three more. The two-game stretch for the Tigers will continue through Sept. 23, changing from its normal Friday – Sunday schedule to Sunday-Tuesday, which gave the Tigers six full days in between games.
“I think it’s at the perfect moment,” Head Coach Dylan Harrison said before the game. “It allows us to get an honest assessment of what we’re good at and where we need to clean some things up. And not only just find that and point it out, but actually spend some time on it. It also lets us celebrate the things we’re doing well, and help get some people healthy.”
In soccer, the phrase “breaking down” describes the processes that go into scoring a goal. For Trinity, they break down with a possession-driven style of play. Similar to the men’s team, the women’s program likes to hold onto the ball and force their opponents to tire out to open up opportunities as the game progresses. Sept. 21 was no different. While Trinity was unable to score in the first half, much of the work that led to their eventual four goals was done in the first 45 minutes of the game.
“It’s like a heavyweight fight,” Harrison said after the game. “The body blows in the early rounds count.”
The first knockout punch of the game came just six minutes into the second half. Sophomore defender Kayla Boven carried the ball forward and found senior midfielder Bri Werner, who played a quick one-touch pass. Werner’s pass lined up junior Madi Barganski for a first-time shot, which she curled past the Concordia goalkeeper, whom Trinity cuaght out with a quick passing move.
Eleven minutes later, Trinity struck again through an indirect free kick in the box — a rare occurrence when two players must touch the ball on a free kick before it can be shot on goal. Junior midfielder Malea Cesar and senior forward Hanna Khan lined up over the dead ball. Cesar touched it quickly to Khan, who then shot towards the back post.
“It was beautiful,” Barganski said. “Credit to Hanna Khan. I figured that she was going to shoot, and if it’s going anywhere near the goal, I need to be there. I was thinking she was going to just make it from the get go, and I was there to block off the defender. But it kind of just came to me, so I was like, ‘Okay, well, put in a foot on it.’”
Knowing the shot was coming, the Concordia Tornadoes had players back on the goal line, but Barganski set herself right in front of the Tornadoes’ defenders and was quicker to react to the incoming ball. She finished off the set piece with a quick back heel finish out of the air.
“We actually worked on it about a week,” Harrison said. “It’s funny enough, it’s not one of those things we cover all the time, but we happen to tick off that box early and it paid off perfectly.”
The final two Tigers goals came from set pieces as well. Sophomore midfielder Elie Kriek took both. On the first, her ball bounced through traffic and landed in the path of senior defender Ilsa Newland for her second career goal. The second flew directly onto the head of sophomore defender Kylie Harris, who grabbed her second career goal for the Tigers to cap off the four-goal second half.
After the game, Harrison praised the work of his two center defenders for scoring goals on top of the normal defensive duties they already do for the team.
“Think about just what they do throughout the whole game,” Harrison said. “When people are trying to hit long balls in behind, they’re having to deal with it, so it’s already a strength of theirs. The timing is a little bit different, but obviously they’re good at it. It’s always good to get at least a little mention on the stat sheet.”
The win continued a stretch of improvement for the Tigers as they started the season with just two wins in four games.
“Last year we only beat them by one,” Barganski said. “I think it was a good win going forward into our conference in two weeks. It just allowed us to understand that: Yes, we can do this. We can be put in tough situations, and we can figure it out.”
The Tigers have a quick turnaround to face Texas Lutheran University on Sept. 23. Then the women’s team plays one match over the weekend on the road against Mary Hardin-Baylor University on Sept. 27.
(This story was updated with more thorough coverage)
