Following a pair of victories over Lafayette and Massachusetts last week, the women’s soccer team extended its winning streak to three with a 2-1 win over Central Connecticut State (3-5-0) at Stevenson-Pincince Field Sunday.
Goals from Celia Story ’19 and Star White ’21 powered Bruno (6-2-0) to victory, erasing an early, one-goal lead for the Blue Devils.
“We came back from a deficit and then were able to put another goal away,” said Head Coach Kia McNeill. “Our team has a lot of resilience and you saw that tonight. That just says a lot about our leadership on the team and our attacking personalities, who were able to dig us out of that hole.”
White scored the game-winning goal in the 55th minute, heading in a cross from Story on the right side.
“In the first half, we had a lot of opportunities on goal, so I knew we were going to come back and score some more,” White said. “When Celia had that ball, I backed up and I just kind of headed it in — it happened so fast. We just had the willpower and said we were going to win, so we brought it.”
Story tied the game in the 24th minute, sending the ball into the left corner of the goal off a cross from Mikela Waldman ’18. Waldman recorded two assists in the contest.
The Blue Devils took an early lead in the 11th minute, when Yo Tachibana followed up an initial block with a shot past Brown goalkeeper Christine Etzel ’19.
“We came out in a 3-5-2, which is a little bit more of an aggressive offensive formation,” McNeill said. “Any time you play that, you’re a little bit vulnerable in the back.”
Etzel made four saves for her sixth season victory.
With Ivy League play looming, McNeill emphasized the importance of maximizing both the team’s defensive strength and offensive output.
“We want to solidify things on the defensive side, but we want to continue to get better offensively as well — you can’t win games unless you score goals,” McNeill said. “Getting more efficient (and) more aggressive in front of the goal is really going to be a strength of this team going forward.”
Mentally, the Bears are well-poised to open conference play against Dartmouth at home Sunday.
“We all believe in each other, we had a lot of players playing in different positions tonight and everybody’s very confident,” McNeill said. “That’s definitely where we want to be heading into Ivy League play.”
“We can just become even more connected and tighten it as a group because we’re still getting used to how one person plays versus the other,” White said. “We’ve been constantly building and I don’t think we’ve reached our peak yet, so I think this was a good game to put our confidence up as a team.”
The Bears will host Sacred Heart Wednesday before facing Dartmouth at home Sunday.
