In front of a home crowd of more than 200 fans, the Binghamton University women’s soccer team won its third consecutive game with a 3-1 victory over the visiting Temple University Owls on Friday evening.
Freshman forward Jamie Holliday continued her stellar play by scoring the Bearcats’ first two goals in the game. For her efforts, she was named America East Rookie of the Week, announced on Monday afternoon.
“[Holliday] has the ability to really be dangerous through the back line,” said Bearcats head coach Sarah McClellan. “I don’t know that people are necessarily noting her and making adjustments for her. They should; she’s a great player, and she’s been proving it on the scoreboard.”
Holliday opened the scoring just 56 seconds into the contest, sending a ball from the right flank over the Owls’ keeper and into the far corner.
“We started off really strong,” Holliday said of the goal’s setup. “We were pressing up the field, and I saw an opportunity to cross the ball and it happened to go in the goal.”
Holliday tallied her second goal of the night in the 18th minute when redshirt freshman midfielder Brittany Walsh threaded a great lead pass behind the Temple defense for Holliday to blast by the Temple goalkeeper.
But the 2-0 lead would be cut in half with just 31 seconds remaining in the period when Temple’s Morgyn Seigfried, a freshman, chipped a shot over Bearcats senior goalkeeper Jen McEachron.
In the second period, senior captain Amanda Casares gave the Bearcats an insurance goal to seal the victory. She seemed to have touched the ball on nearly every offensive possession for the Bearcats throughout the course of the match.
“[Casares] is a true leader on and off the field,” McClellan said. “She does a great job, is a hard-working player and she’s starting to find the back of the net in these past couple games, which have been huge goals for us. She scored the first goal of the season, and scored an insurance goal in this game, which really sealed the game for us.”
McClellan praised the Bearcats’ turnaround this season, winning three games in a row after an 0-3-1 start that saw zero goals scored by BU.
“Our professionalism is increasing,” she said. “We’re starting to be more professional players on and off the field, and that’s what’s needed at this level of the game in order to perform.”
“We’re just getting more comfortable with each other and the chemistry is starting to really build,” Holliday said of the improved play. “And I think that we’re more comfortable on the field. There’s a lot of freshmen starting now, so I think we’re just building confidence and working to our benefit.”
Casares echoed the same sentiment. “We had a rough start,” she said. “We were playing at first as individuals, and we didn’t know how to combine. Now in practice we’re learning how to play with each other; we’re getting more mature. We’re about a month into playing with each other, so I think that a lot of stuff we’re doing in practice is translating into games and we’re getting the results that we want.”
Holliday also pointed out the energy that both teams contributed to the game to make it exciting.
“I thought [the energy] was great,” she said. “Everybody was bringing fire, Temple’s bench was going in the second half, and I think our team saw that and stepped up on the field to counteract that and our bench had to pick us up. It’s just been great, everybody knows that we’re gonna do something special here.”
But the road only gets tougher from this point forward for the Bearcats, as the next matchup at Boston University will be one of the toughest of the season. It is the first America East Conference game of the season, and the Bearcats have beaten the Terriers only once in school history. Binghamton is scheduled to travel to Boston University on Sunday for a 1 p.m. match.
“It’s gonna be a huge game,” Holliday said. “We have a week to prepare for it, which is going to help us a lot, and coming off three wins is great. We have a lot of energy and fire going into the Boston game, so I think we’ll be ready.”