S. Orange, N.J.- A season high five goals propelled Villanova (6-4-3, 2-1-1 BIG EAST) to their second conference victory of the season at Seton Hall Thursday night.
"Anytime you can get three points on the road, you are gonna walk away feeling good," said head coach Chris McLain. "Kudos to our players for being so locked in and focused at the task at hand. Seton Hall was defensively organized and tough to unlock. Our players had to really work hard to pull them out of shape... after some adjustments at half, we were better at getting in behind."
The Wildcats offense took 20 shots on the night, with 10 coming in each half. Villanova's
Shaye Seyffart was able to net first goal on a pass from
Kristen Vinciguerra in the 32
nd minute to push the 'Cats up 1-0 at halftime.
In a span of 15 minutes in the second half the Wildcat offense found the back of the net three times. First
Chloe O'Neill dished out a pass to
Sam Rosette for her third goal of the season, next it was O'Neill who scored a break away goal in the 61
st minute and finally it was
Grace Karagjozi who set up the fourth goal of the game. The rookie passed a ball down to the endline which foudn
Makayla Stadler, who then crossed the ball right in front of the goal-line. There
Shannon Casey was able tipp the ball into the net to push the Villanova lead to 4-0 in the 69
th minute.
"Our front five was dangerous today, perhaps the most dangerous I've seen then since first arriving to Villanova," continued McLain. "But what really made this staff happy was how hard the back five worked. Conner Huggins, Tori Alfero and Kristen Barbour showed up with a zero nonsense mentality and we couldn't be prouder of how they orchestrated tonight's game.
Seton Hall was able to score one in the 81
st minute but Stadler answered back scoring in the next minute on an unassisted goal to make the final 5-1.
Rebecca Gartner got the start in goal again for the Wildcats and saved Seton Hall's lone shot on goal in the first half.
Villanova will return home to host DePaul on Sunday, October 13
th.
McLain shared about Sunday's upcoming match, "DePaul is one of the toughest teams to play in the country. We will have our hands full for sure. They are very similar to Brown University. When we played Brown, we talked to our players about how that game will prepare us for this DePaul game. It will be a battle, one I hope our players are up for."
Kickoff at Higgins is scheduled for 1:00 P.M.
