After a season in which more wrong than good happened for Ian Stone and his squad, the St. John’s women’s soccer team is off to another hot start and don’t seem to be cooling down anytime soon.
The Lady Johnnies continued their hot streak with a 4-0 victory against Brown University on Sunday. Scoring machine sophomore Rachel Daly had her second hat trick in six games and has 11 goals overall. While Daly has been taking the spotlight, it’s been the defense that has allowed for these one sided victories.
Winners of six straight to start the season, Stone’s squad has shut out their last five opponents and made a mockery of its competition. Freshman goalkeeper Diana Poulin has stopped 16 shots while allowing only one goal of the year.
With the exception of their 2-1 victory over Delaware and 1-0 victory over UMass, the Red Storm defense has made the offense shine. The defense has allowed the offense to have a plus 20 goal differential and makes a goal lead feel like an insurmountable deficit.
With a perfect 6-0-0 record, the Lady Johnnies have already matched their win total from last season when they went 6-10-1, and scored a total of 16 goals on the year which is five fewer than this year. The last time the Red Storm finished above .500 was 2009-10 when they went 13-6-2 and lost to Virginia in the Women’s College Cup.
To show just how hot of a start the ladies are off to, let’s take a look at the numbers. First the offense; the 21 team goals scored thus far is about halfway to the school record of 43 goals scored in the 1989 season when the Red [wo]Men went 6-9-1 and their top goal scorer was Adriana Viola who scored 15 goals.
While 43 goals is attainable, Stone’s squad is on pace to score 63 goals would would shatter the school record and
increase the total by 31 percent.
There is a lot to look forward to with this young team that is playing with a chip on its shoulder. Daly’s quest is not only to break the current school record for most goals – 17 by Cristin Burtis in 1994 – but also to contend for a spot high atop the NCAA scoring ranks. The current NCAA Division I record for goals in a season is owned by Christine Sinclair of Portland. Sinclair scored 39 goals in 25 games for the Portland Pilots while on the cusp of the 2005 College Cup Championship. Daly’s team has 18 regular season games remaining and will need to rack up a couple more hat tricks as the season progresses to keep soccer fans glued to the box score as the season progresses.
It’s been four seasons since the women’s soccer team has had something to smile about, and should the season continue the ways it’s been going, there should be some serious November soccer to be played.
