The Hofstra University women’s soccer team pulled out a comfortable 3-0 win against the Farleigh Dickinson University (FDU) Knights. The win is the Pride’s second on the season and extends their unbeaten run to six games. Hofstra is now 10-0-1 all-time against the Knights and has won 10 straight meetings.
Following the result, the Pride sits at 2-0-4, while their Northeast Conference opponents are still searching for a win as they drop to 0-3-4.
“Pretty solid from start to finish,” said Hofstra head coach Simon Riddiough. “I thought we came out really strong the first 20 minutes and dominated. Second half we turned it up and [we’re] pretty happy with the performance. Clean sheets [are] always good and three goals in a game [is] even better.”
The Pride got contributions from all over. Eight Hofstra players registered a shot during the match. Dagny Run Petursdottir opened the scoring off a nice move by Ellie Gough and Millie Davies to set up the junior. Gough then found the net herself in the second half, her second goal for the Pride. Finally, Margaret Peterson scored her first collegiate goal in a swift counterattack set up by Mathilde Braithwaite. Braithwaite had two shots and one assist during the match.
“If I had [Braithwaite’s] pace, I would have had 10 goals tonight,” Riddiough said. “She’s got to believe in herself when she’s in one-on-one situations. When she does, she’s unstoppable. You saw it the last 25 minutes, every time she got the ball, they couldn’t stop her.”
FDU goalkeeper Rosemarie Leblanc made eight saves on the evening, keeping the Knights in the game early on.
“Fair play to her… that first save on [Mathilde Braithwaite] was fantastic and then the one on [Gough],” Riddiough said. “She came up with some really good reflex saves, we know she’s got some deficiencies, and we tried to expose them.”
The Pride tested the freshman keeper all night as they racked up 19 shots on the night. Eventually, Hofstra solved her with two second-half goals to put the game on ice.
The comfortable lead allowed Riddiough to give minutes to some new faces. Ava Lanfredi, Amy Meadows, Eila Wennerholm and Jill Conlon all made their season debuts during the match. Additionally, sophomore Alexia Bromfield saw her first real action in her second appearance of the season.
“I thought [Bromfield]’s done great,” Riddiough said. “Last year she was a freshman. She wasn’t physically ready to play at our level. She put on a good effort this summer to get physically stronger and a little bit more athletic. We thought she deserved to get rewarded for that.”
The Pride’s victory is their second clean sheet of the season. The stout Hofstra defense has only allowed four goals in six games.
“It starts with our two center-backs, [Gabriella] Marte was brilliant tonight, and Louise [Hayden] was her usual steady self,” Riddiough said. “Once you’ve got those two pivots working really well, it’s easy to fit people around… it bodes well for the future as we move through the season.”
The Pride hit the road to play Dartmouth University on Sunday, Sept. 15, when they won the previous meeting 1-0 in 2018.
Photos courtesy of Royce Dickson-Child
Photos courtesy of Amelia Bashy
