Women’s Soccer: Saint Joseph’s offense explodes in back-to-back conference wins

Saint Joseph’s women have moved into a tie for fourth place in the Atlantic 10 after a productive week that saw them outscore opponents 8-1 and extend their winning streak to four games.

Hannah Racis (Womelsdorf, Pa.) and Morgan Bower both scored in the first half and Gabrielle Vagnozzi made it 3-0 in the second half before the Hawks conceded a late goal in a 3-1 win over George Washington on Thursday.

Three days later in Rhode Island, Dakota Mills opened the scoring in the 14th minute and the Hawks added four more goals from Kylie D’Ambra (Washington Township, N.J.), Mills’ sixth of the season, Morgan Bower’s fifth of the year and Racis’s sixth goal. Grace Bendon (Doylestown, Pa.) made three saves to record her fifth clean sheet of the season against Rhode Island.

The Hawks improved to 6-2-0 in conference and 11-4-2 overall with the back-to-back wins.

Their conference rivals La Salle didn’t fair as well, dropping a pair of conference road games at Dayton and Fordham to fall to 3-5-0 in conference play.

Madison Bower opened the scoring in Dayton in the 48th minute with her ninth of the year but an own goal in the 75th minute tied the game and the Flyers found a winner less than two minutes from the game ending a draw on a ball deflected into the net by a La Salle player. Fordham scored the game’s only goal in their 1-0 win over La Salle in the 54th minute off a corner kick.

No team in Division 1 has conceded fewer goals than Penn after they picked up their seventh straight shutout with a 1-0 win over Dartmouth on Saturday.

Megan Lloyd scored the game’s only goal in the 51st minute. The Quakers are now 10-1-1 overall and 3-0-1 in the Ivy League. Kitty Qu made seven saves in the match to record her eighth clean sheet of the season.

Their .241 goals against average (three goals in 12 matches and 1,119 minutes) is tops in the nation.

Villanova fell to 3-3-0 in Big East play after their second straight conference loss, a 1-0 loss to Creighton at home. Creighton’s goal came on a penalty kick in the 55th minute.

Drexel slipped to 5-6-5 on the year and 2-4-1 in conference play after a 3-2 loss to Hofstra and a scoreless draw with Towson. The Dragons fell in overtime to Hofstra after Lauren Currey (Harrisburg, Pa.) sent the game into overtime with her second of the day and third of the season.

Temple had a 2-2 draw at Cincinnati and lost 1-0 a East Carolina to fall to 2-3-1 in conference play and 6-8-1 overall. Gabriela Johnson (Mays Landing, N.J.) had her fifth of the season and Emma Wilkins (Galloway, N.J.) her sixth in the draw against the Bearcats.

Misericordia forward Ashley Edgell (Seaville, N.J.) was named the United Soccer Coaches Division III player of the week after scoring four goals and adding an assist in wins over Eastern University and Delaware Valley University. She leads the Cougars with seven goals.

What did I miss in women’s soccer this week? Email me at matthew.r.ralph@gmail.com.