Point women’s soccer shuts out St. Andrews, goalkeeper honored

Published 8:35 pm Monday, October 29, 2018

WEST POINT — The Point University women’s soccer team finished the regular season in impressive fashion on Monday afternoon. The Skyhawks shut out St. Andrews 5-0 to end the regular season with a 9-8-1 overall and a 7-4-1 conference standing.

“It was nice to get everyone in that we could,” Point head women’s soccer coach Randy Douglas said. “To be able to send the seniors off in their last regular season home game, have one of them score twice and the other one score a nice goal to finish us off today, it was nice.”

Point jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first half and the second half was more of the same story. The Skyhawks had a deeper bench than St. Andrews and took advantage of fresh legs as the game went on and fatigue set in for the Knights. Senior midfielder Jessica Torres entered the game with 27 minutes remaining and immediately scored two goals within six minutes.

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“I’m glad for her, because out of everyone this year, she’s been probably the most consistent player,” Douglas said. “I’m very hopeful that she’ll get an award of being on first-team all-conference. Getting a couple of goals today would help her resume a little bit. She’s had goals against Milligan, goals against Brena, and she’s always playing this holding mid where she’s keeping an eye on the other team’s main attack coming out of the middle, and for her to get goals is just icing on the cake. Anybody who can play two ways like that, the conference can respect.”

Senior midfielder Cierra Burns iced the game with 11:02 remaining, connecting on a long strike for Point’s fifth goal of the day.

The Skyhawks’ defense was stifling all afternoon, led by freshman defender Jasmine Mathis and senior goalkeeper Rachel Ash. Ash was named the conference defender of the week earlier on Monday.

“She’s been a steady performer, and I’m happy that she was able to get that award,” Douglas said. “It was well deserved. It’s been a while since we’ve had anyone honored, and it’s not because we don’t have decent, it’s that sometimes we have inconsistent weeks of play. She had a good game against Reinhardt and the shutout against Union.”

The team plays in the conference tournament opening round against Milligan on Friday afternoon.

It remains to be seen where that game will be played, depending on if the Buffaloes won on Monday night or not.