Bridgewater Women’s Soccer Takes Care of Business, Beating Sweet Briar 19-0

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Lynn Walsh 

Taylor Thomas poses for media day earlier this Fall. Thomas scored two goals against Sweet Briar and added five assists, a program record. 

Nathaniel Winebarger, Staff Writer

Bridgewater, Va.- First-year forward Taylor Thomas tallied five assists in Bridgewater’s game against Sweet Briar en route to a 19-0 shutout. Her five assists are a single game assist record for Bridgewater Women’s Soccer.

“It was super exciting getting my first collegiate goal with the help of my teammates and another conference win to help our team achieve the goals we set at the beginning of the season,” said Thomas. 

Fifteen different Eagles scored in the contest, while four had two goals. Senior Madison Crooks, sophomore Anna Zurlo, first-years Micah Stine and Thomas all found the back of the net on multiple occasions.

Fifteen different scorers is the most in a game for any ODAC school since the 2007 season.  It is also the first time since 2017 that any team has had multiple double-digit scoring games in one season.  

Scoring got underway in the third minute when junior midfielder Ashley Sabatino put one in the back of the net to make it a 1-0 game. The Eagles didn’t look back, scoring seven more times before the 20-minute mark.  

Junior Skyler Daum made it 2-0 and seniors Kaia Richardson and Hanna Randolph added goals to extend it to 4-0.  

First-years Lyric Birkley, Kendall Garza and Megan Palm also added goals early on.  They were joined by veteran and senior Madison Crooks who netted her second goal on the season.  Then Zurlo scored twice in the span of three minutes to make it a 10-0 game.

The scoring continued when Stine and Thomas added the first of their two goals.  Freshman Allison Quick, sophomore Madison Ferrone, junior Madeline Bohan and junior Hannah Nugent finished the scoring for the Eagles. 

Nineteen goals broke a program record for most goals in a single game and moved the Eagles into second in the entire nation in goals scored during the 2022 season. 

Junior Carlee Gaboury stopped the one shot on goal for the Vixens.  

“It was nice to have a game where defensively, the team doesn’t switch off,” said junior defender Maren Doughtery, “We had a goal coming into the game to not share the ball with our opponent, and we definitely succeeded in this goal.”

The defense was continuously causing turnovers and never allowed Sweet Briar to get in any rhythm.  The Eagles held Sweet Briar to just one shot on goal the entire game.  They also put 29 shots on net themselves.  

“It was great to see so many girls get their first collegiate goal and have every player contribute to the team win,” said Junior Katelyn Seagraves. 

The game improved Bridgewater to 9-3 and 5-0 in the ODAC.  The Eagles have four remaining games, including a huge one at home against Lynchburg on Saturday, Oct. 22.