The women’s soccer team repeated their 5-0 win, but this time they played Soka University’s new soccer program. Biola left little room for comparison as their women’s soccer team all time record grew to 132-130-21 while their opponent’s all time record fell to 2-3-0.
During last Friday’s game the Lions of Soka University had the clear disadvantage facing the Eagles at Al Barbour Field. As Soka players were stretching out the kinks from their long ride, the women’s soccer team for Biola began their small pre-game scrimmage.
After both blue and white stood up on both sides of the benches the music stopped and switched to an announcer that gave a prayer. Players were introduced and captains met with the referees midfield at the sidelines.
A quick handshake and immediately both teams were on the field ready to go. The Eagles made the first push by moving the ball around back field giving the offense time to get into scoring position. Soka defense started off a bit shy which the Eagles took advantage of by pushing the ball close to the goal within the first 10 minutes of the game.
The Eagles got on the board in the sixth minute as junior Sam David intercepted a goal kick and found senior Ashley Moseley for an easy goal just off to the side of the net.
“Scoring early really gave us confidence,” said junior Amy Atkinson. “[However] my mentality is to never think a game is over.”
The more established and more dominant team prepared to make a cushion before the end of the first half as they found the back of the net on three more occasions. The second and third goals came by David as she finished off two messy corner kicks.
The fourth goal came about by junior Zoe Zappas just as the first half was closing. She dribbled the ball far side and made a kick that had a slight curve that found the net which surprised even the goal keeper.
“Well its always fun to score and it was nice to help my team seal the deal with the win last night. I was just really determined to get that goal in,” said Zappas when asked about the notable effort. “I had a couple of attempts earlier in the game, but was unsuccessful so it was good to have hard work pay off.”
As the second half continued, the Eagles defense became stronger. A well placed pass by senior Megan Gularte helped sophomore Brittany Barr cap off the 63rd minute with the fifth and final goal of the match.
It was a well balanced game for Biola as they improve to 3-0-1 on the season. However, non-conference play is now over and they will start GSAC play this Saturday against a much tougher opponent, San Diego Christian.
“Great to get a win [and] great to score a lot of goals; although they were not competitive, we didn’t step it as much as we should,” said Atkinson. “We still have a lot of work to do so we need to be ready.”
