The Lipscomb women’s soccer team dominated from start to finish in the opening match of the ASUN Conference women’s soccer tournament against Jacksonville State Friday afternoon.
After claiming the top seed in the tournament and earning hosting rights throughout the competition, the Bisons continued their successful season with a 6-0 result against the 8-seeded Gamecocks.
Behind three goals in each half and a clean sheet from ASUN Goalkeeper of the Year CJ Graham, the Bisons were unstoppable in the attack and impenetrable defensively, leaving no room for JSU to compete.
“For me, [the match] was a comprehensive win from start to finish,” said head coach Kevin O’Brien after his 99th win with the Bisons in 10 seasons. “I thought we were the aggressor and created great chances early on, and thankfully converted a couple. I think those early goals against a really, really good team [were] really beneficial.”
Graham, a redshirt sophomore from Swannanoa, North Carolina, accrued seven saves en route to her 11th clean sheet of the season, the highest mark among all NCAA Division I goalkeepers this year. Graham has accrued 70 saves this season and only conceded 10.
Meanwhile, the Lipscomb attack stole the show after firing on all cylinders for the full 90 minutes. Junior midfielder and Auburn transfer Cami Rogers opened the scoring inside of 10 minutes on a close-range finish. The team’s leading goalscorer, Rogers’ run to the far post was rewarded when sophomore striker Molly Grant sent a low cross from the right side of the box.
Rogers finished with a pair of goals on the day, upping her total to seven on the year. Hailing from Prattville, Alabama, Rogers was named to the All-ASUN Second Team this year after earning All-ASUN First Team honors last season.
The second goal of the match came on a drastic defensive error from Jacksonville State. A poor pass from the back came to Kammy McGee in the 14th minute, and the sophomore from Collierville, Tennessee slotted home a simple second goal for the Bisons. That put Lipscomb in full control before the quarter-hour mark, but the Bisons never looked back.
Before the half was over, Rogers grabbed a second on another assist from Grant. Grant dribbled her way into a scoring chance down the right side of the box, but the Plainfield, Illinois-born attacker passed up on the opportunity to shoot and played a ball past McGee to an awaiting Rogers, who again slotted home a sitter for the Bisons’ third of the day.
Despite 12 of their 14 offside infringements coming in the first half, Lipscomb found a way to put three goals past an often-confused and highly inexperienced JSU defense. All four members of the Gamecocks’ back line were freshmen on a roster that boasts just one senior and fourteen freshmen.
JSU did fare better in the attack with efficient shooting, forcing seven saves from Graham on just eight total shots. Lipscomb, meanwhile, took a total of 19 shots and landed 10 on target.
The second half only proved to extend the Bisons’ lead. Grant continued her strong contribution in the 60th minute when she added an goal to her afternoon, coolly firing in a first-time shot on a cross from Arkansas transfer Allie Dunn. The Oak Ridge, Tennessee-born winger now has a team-leading six assists this year.
The match continued in relatively quiet fashion, with both sides settling down in a match that had been decided long before the final whistle. Lipscomb never stopped attacking, though, and found a late-match flurry to bolster their numbers further.
The fifth goal was undoubtedly the best play of the match; Noa Ganthier, a true freshman from Boca Raton, Florida, received a short pass at the edge of the box from McGee, and the rest was magisterial. Ganthier lifted a ball from the right side of the area across the face of goal, landing the ball in the upper left corner and leaving JSU goalkeeper Morgan Lerch helpless. Ganthier has now collected two goals on twelve shots in her first year with the Bisons.
The icing on the cake was a sweet goal from another freshman. Colombian striker Shadia Valenzuela grabbed her third goal of the year off a deflection from close range, putting further insurance on the result and closing out the match with an exclamation point.
“No match is easy,” Valenzuela said in an interview translated from Spanish, “but we have full confidence in Coach [O’Brien]. He knows exactly what he wants from us, and the objective was always to score as much as possible until the end.”
“The only way to respect an opponent is to keep scoring goals,” Valenzuela said of her goal that put Lipscomb ahead by six. “Scoring goals was all we intended to do all match long.”
The Bisons continue their ASUN tournament run 1 pm Sunday at Lipscomb Soccer Complex against either Eastern Kentucky or Liberty in the semifinal, with the winner reaching the final.
“We still haven’t won anything,” Valenzuela said. “We’re preparing to keep going in the same vein for what comes next. We have to keep working.”
Meanwhile, O’Brien is one match away from a century of wins for the Bisons after being named ASUN Coach of the Year for the third time earlier this week.
“In the end, it takes a staff of people, and not only the coaching staff,” O’Brien said. “All the support that we get as a program is phenomenal. I feel like we’ve got a crack coaching staff when it comes to soccer, and we’ve got a team that competes.”
“This is our MO, even when we were losing games early in my career: ‘We’re going to battle, we’re going to fight, and we’re going to make it hard on anybody,'” O’Brien said.
“We’ve been able to sign players who keep that identity but have a little bit more to offer. To have multiple goalscorers on your team is a luxury, and we’ve got a couple of great ones that aren’t even playing right now,” O’Brien said. “For me as a coach, I sit back sometimes and I’m in awe of the work the team has put in.”
Sunday’s match will be broadcast live on The Bison, Lipscomb’s on-campus radio station.
Photo courtesy of Lipscomb Athletics