ONU Wins at Home 5-0

The Ohio Northern Women's Soccer team got their first victory from the past four matches in commanding fashion 5-0 on Saturday afternoon in Ada.  Saturday also marked the 3rd Annual Kicks for a Cause event hosted by both the Men's and Women's soccer programs. ONU has been dominating opponents and coming up short in recent games, but this wasn't the case on Saturday. 

The Polar Bears got off to an early lead against OAC opponent Marietta College when Junior Sandy Plunkett notched home a header off fellow Junior Lauren Brown's corner.  Plunkett wasn't done for the day though.  Sophmore forward Sandra Thorarensen took a great through pass from Junior Tri Captain Abbie Schauble, dribbled the GK, and then placed a pass across the box to Plunkett, netting her second goal of the match.  Going into halftime, ONU outshot Marietta 10-0 and took a 2-0 lead. 

The second half was similar to the first, as ONU continued to mount pressure, tallying 19 total shots in the second half compared to only allowing Marietta one.  Senior Tri Captain Erin Waehner got the shutout and didn't have to make a save for the entire 90 minutes of play.  Other player contributing on the offensive side were Seniors Paige Garber playing very dangerous set pieces into the penalty area, Senior Tri Captain Tara Tokar (who scored the third goal), Freshman Alex Weirich who got her second goal of her young career, Junior Sami Atkinson who got her second goal of the season, and freshman Alex Hazelet who earned an assist along with teammates Paige Garber, Sami Atkinson, Sandra Thorarensen and Lauren Brown.

"Overall it was a great performance from the players" said Head Coach Mark Batman.  "This past week has been very difficult for them.  We've played 3 matches in 5 days.  They played extremely well in all three matches, and today was great for them to finally get the win they've deserved for the past two weeks.  This was great preparation for the OAC tournament as we may have to play a very similar schedule if we finish the conference season anywhere from 3rd place to 6th place.  Our goal is to finish the OAC season as strong as possible and just continue to improve and play well.  It was a great defensive day for us and if our offense can continue to play the rest of the season as they did today (five goals from four players), we will be a very hard team to beat come conference tournament, but, we have to get there, and that's our main focus right now.  The team is confident, as is the staff, if we continue to move forward, we'll be playing in three weeks."