Through five games, the Longwood women’s soccer team has only three goals and is still searching for their first win. They were in Philadelphia this weekend for a pair of matches and came up empty-handed.
The first game was on Friday evening at Saint Joseph’s out of the Atlantic 10, where the Lancers (0-3-2) were stymied by the Hawks’ offensive might, 5-1. SJU’s Emily Gingrich scored unassisted twice in the first 10 minutes to establish the early advantage. Gina D'Orazio then got on the board with her first career goal at Longwood in the 24th minute to cut the Hawks’ lead in half. It remained 2-1 at halftime with both teams tied in shots and for much of the second half. Things started to tip slightly in the Lancers’ favor with five early shots, one of which hit the post. In the 65th minute, Shannon Westhead assisted Mo Hawkins on a header that ended up opening the floodgates for SJU, as they went on to score two more goals in the 72nd and 80th minutes for the final margin.
"Defensively, it felt like we were throwing gas on a fire. We will all take ownership of this result and move on,” head coach Todd Dyer said afterward to longwoodlancers.com. Longwood outshot the Hawks 19-16 in that match.
Sunday afternoon, they went across town to play Drexel of the Colonial Athletic Association. Goalkeeper Shelby Hall made five saves against the Dragons but the visitors came away without a goal, losing 1-0. The match’s lone goal was scored by Shyanne Kimbrough 10 minutes in when she converted a penalty kick. Longwood was outshot 6-1 in the first half and 12-7 overall.
“We lost 1-0 on the road to a strong CAA team and the difference in the game was a PK. I love the way our schedule challenges us this year and it will serve us well as we get into our conference schedule,” Dyer said. “We are getting stronger and it’s only a matter of time before everything comes together for this group.”
Up next for the Lancers is a tournament at UNC Wilmington this weekend. They have a neutral-site game against Elon on Friday at 5 p.m. before taking on the hosts at 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
Kelsey Pardue leads the team in shots with 17, followed by Samantha Phillips with 15, Amanda Spencer with nine and D’Orazio with five. LU has outshot their five opponents by a combined total of 72-71. Hall has played all but 21:35 in net, saving 23 of 64 shots faced (not all shots have been on net).
