It made for a frustrating start for the Emerson women’s soccer team in their second conference game of the season at The Field at Rotch Playground on Saturday,

Sept. 19.

Twenty shots on goal in the first 20 minutes resulted in a blank scoreboard.,It seemed as though the ball simply refused to go into the net.

It made for a frustrating start for the Emerson women’s soccer team in their second conference game of the season at The Field at Rotch Playground on Saturday,

Sept. 19.

Twenty shots on goal in the first 20 minutes resulted in a blank scoreboard. But it only took a second to turn things completely around.

With 11 minutes left in the first period, junior Lindsay D’Andrea broke the scoreless tie with a header into the net off a cross shot from Eileene McIntre.

Soon the offense was a fluid motion of effortless precision. A rapid pass up the side. A short tap to a striker. Another slick pass inside the scoring area and just like that, the Lions found the goal.

Dominating offensively, Emerson

found repeated success with this recipe.

Rarely letting the ball cross over onto their side of the field and dictating play from the outset, the Lions eventually downed the Pine Manor College Gators by a score of 4-0.

D’Andrea’s simple trickle into the net rapidly turned into a river of scoring for the Lions.

The offensive mentality took over as Emerson dominated the attack with 44 shots on goal, compared to zero for the Gators.

“I just had it in my mind that we needed to score and we needed to get some goals in for the team,” said writing, literature and publishing major D’Andrea. “We don’t ever feel comfortable with just one goal so our goal for the second half was to score three within 15 minutes.”

D’Andrea’s prediction wasn’t too far from reality, as the Lions notched three goals in the second period to sew up the victory.

Finding its key to success through a combination of intensity

paired with a calm and collected

attitude, the team was able to keep its emotions in check and stay on top of its opponent.

Practice played a key role in not only the offensive skills displayed

in the game, but helped also their mental acuity.

“Scoring while staying calm is something we’ve been working

on in practice recently and it paid off today,” said second year Coach Katelyn Haggerty. “With more practice it can only get better.”

It was D’Andrea who continued

the scoring in the second half, breaking away down the left side of the field to knock a goal past Pine Manor goalie Christina Santos with just over 36 minutes left in the game.

From there the rest of the team joined the offensive effort. Less than two minutes later junior Lisa Viccione took the initiative and nailed an unassisted shot in from 15 yards out to make the Lions’ lead a nearly insurmountable

3-0.

Haggerty said it’s hard to stop her team after they build up some confidence.

“We were knocking on their door quite a bit early on and not being able to put one in is frustrating,”

she said. “But I think normally once we get one in we settle down a bit and the rest of the goals just follow.”

Keeping their mental intensity up for the entire contest was a key component for the Lions, said visual and media arts major and senior Captain Katie Franzeo.

“In previous years we’ve known that Pine Manor isn’t that strong a team but we decided this year that we wanted to treat every team as a Norwich [University]

or a Curry [College], like a really strong team,” said Franzeo, refrencing teams that consistently rank near the top of the GNAC standings. “Last year we had a tendency to play down to the teams that weren’t as good which would make us play worse.”

Junior Tamara Kearney ensured the Lions’ continued play and intensity at the highest level.

With less than two minutes remaining,

Kearney pounded in a left to right goal from just five yards out, settling the score at 4-0 and improving the Lions’ record to 2-0-0 in the GNAC.

Still, the Lions are searching for a certain level of confidence, which could come with another solid win over a conference foe.

“It’s our second conference game and our second conference

win so we look to carry that momentum forward into a big conference week with games against Mount Ida and St. Joe’s [of Maine],” Haggerty said.