Jaguar Soccer Win Both Weekend Matches By Shutout
Sophie Haywood, Freshman from Hull, England, earned her first hat-trick against Southern Miss on Friday night as the Jags defeated the Golden Eagles 6-0. Photo: usajaguars.com
The Jaguar soccer team won both of their matches over the weekend, both by shutout and by a combined score of 13-0.
They started off the weekend when they defeated Southern Miss 6-0 after the Golden Eagles picked up an early red card. Freshman Sophie Haywood earned a hat-trick in the match.
The Jaguars outshot USM 31-3 to get their second largest margin of victory against the Golden Eagles in the history of the series between the two schools.
Junior Nini Rabsatt-Smith and freshmen Tiina Trutsi and Rio Hardy all found the back of the net for the Jaguars.
Haywood got the scoring started at the 33:12 mark from the left byline after a corner kick. She then added her second seven minutes later with a stop from the top of the box. Her third and final goal would come in the waning minutes of the match on a low shot past the goalkeeper.
On Sunday the Jaguars traveled to Southern University and blanked them with a 7-0 win.
All of the goals were scored by Freshmen with the exception of one. Beginning with Charde Hannah in the 13th minute, followed by Danielle Henley in the 14th minute to give South Alabama an early 2-0 lead. Then Rio Hardy netted a goal, her first of two for the day, in the 23rd minute followed shortly by Chelsea Followwell, the first of her career, in the 26th minute for a 4-0 advantage.
Jordan Duncan, a junior, made it 5-0 in the 37th minute which would also be the score at halftime.
Then the freshmen were at it again with Rio Hardy netting her second goal of the day in the 56th minute and Meagan O’Loughlin closing out the scoring in the 89th minute.
Rio Hardy added a pair of assists for her first six-point performance of her short career as a Jaguar. Hannah and Followwell both had an assist to go along with their goals. Nini Rabsatt-Smith had two assists.
“It was a very team-oriented, professional performance,” USA head coach Graham Winkworth said after the match against Southern. “The first half, we started slowly; Southern sat back and we didn’t move the ball quickly enough. But once we started to move the ball around a little bit quicker, we started creating more chances.”
“That shows how good we are from a depth standpoint,” Winkworth explained. “We have a lot of quality; we’re not a one-player team. When an opposing side is trying to scout us, who do they want to mark? You’re going to have to mark everybody because we’ve got a pretty solid group, and that’s not necessarily the players starting either; we have some quality coming off the bench. We emphasized that again today with scoring two more goals off the bench.”
The Jaguars will travel to Mississippi State for a match on Friday against the Bulldogs starting at 7pm.