Box Score UTICA, N.Y. - SUNYIT's Lady Wildcats (0-4, 0-0) faced their cross-town rivals the Utica College Pioneers (2-1) on Wednesday. As the sun descended over Wildcat Stadium, SUNYIT fell further from the win. When the final whistle blew the Pioneers walked away with a 16-0 victory over the Wildcats.
The Pioneers came out hungry firing a shot past Aubrey Campbell (Auburn, NY/Auburn High School) not even 2 minutes into the match (1:23). Utica College racked up a total of six goals in ten minutes leaving SUNYIT in the dust and frustrated. Six must have been the charm because the Wildcats woke up, composed themselves and found that fire to step up on defense. They didn't let another goal passed them for the next ten minutes into the half. Shots scored by Kelcie Marshall, Katlyn Banker and Maria Santucci wrapped up a ten point lead for the Pioneers at the half.
Wildcat Senior and defender Caitlin Cottell (Eaton Town, NJ/Red Bank Catholic High) held the lead for SUNYIT with two shots on goal followed by Taviot Jackowski (LaFayette, NY/LaFayette High School) and Jenna Lashua (Heuvelton, NY/Heuvelton High School) both with one shot each.
When asked what she thought about the turn out of the game, Head Coach Erynn Anderson responded "Utica is a very good team and came to play today. We could have done some more in transition and those little mistakes in the first half knocked us down then we made it very difficult for ourselves to pick it back up. We made a goalie change at half-time, and switched a couple individuals on defense that haven't really played there yet, and some nice things happened. We've played some tough competition and I think it has prepared us for what we are going to see in the conference this year. We are looking forward to traveling to Wilson College on Friday and then Lancaster Bible College on Saturday to play in our first two NEAC matchups of the season."
It was a tough day for the wildcats coming off of such a spirited effort against Bard College, but what didn't kill them will make them stronger for their next match-up as they travel to Pennsylvania to face Wilson College on Friday, March 23rd at 4:00.
