By Stacy Troiano
On Friday, the women’s soccer team dropped only its second game of the year and first in conference play, a 2-0 loss to preseason conference favorites William and Mary. But head coach Simon Riddiough and the Pride took all positives from the Friday night defeat.
“I think the team recognized that we can beat anybody in the conference,” Riddiough said. “William and Mary were preseason favorites and dominated much of league play last year, and we thought we competed as well if not better than them [on Friday], so in that situation, we kind of took some confidence from that game. We know if we bring our game, we’ll beat everybody else.”
After Hofstra outplayed William and Mary in the first half, the Tribe struck early in the second half, as Claire Zimmeck tallied her eighth and ninth goals of the season just 2:29 apart. Zimmeck’s first goal came after a Pride misplay on defense, as she was able to knock a shot from six yards out just under the crossbar and into the net.
Minutes later, Zimmeck took advantage of another Pride turnover off of a throw-in, as Krissy Vornadore stole the throw-in and sent a ball up the right side for Zimmeck who was able to beat Pride defender Jacki Pollaro and fire a shot from 18 yards out into the lower left corner to put the Tribe up 2-0.
William and Mary’s strong defense took over from there. They held Hofstra to just two shots in the second half and eight in the game, and were the first team to shut out the Pride all season. Still, Riddiough was happy with his team’s performance aside from a shaky few minutes.
“I thought we had a good challenge on Friday night, and although I thought we were the better team, we didn’t come out with the win,” Riddiough said. “But we stepped up to the plate and did quite well.”
“William and Mary are physical, they’re fast, they’re very athletic and they’re pretty direct in their style, whereas we are pretty athletic and hard-working, but more technical in the way we play, so it was going to be a contrast of styles,” Riddiough added. “But the bottom line is they scored on their chances and we didn’t. They made less mistakes than we did, and in a tight game like that, the team that makes the least mistakes will win, and that’s pretty much what it was.”
Hofstra was able to bounce back to defeat Old Dominion on Sunday, but, with fear of looking too far ahead, a potential Pride versus Tribe CAA playoff match-up could be quite a rematch.