Raymond Hoare
Student Sports Media
The soccer season is upon us and after weeks of training to scrimmage games, the Butler Grizzlies are ranked 8th in the top 20 NJCAA Women’s Soccer preseason poll.
The Butler Grizzlies were eyeing for a win at home for their season opener at home against the Northern Oklahoma-Tonkawa Mavericks. Many new faces joined the Grizzlies this year as a few sophomores remained in the mix.
As the game kicked off, the Grizzlies attacked heavy as freshman forward Aylssa Stewart scored her first collegiate goal in the 10th minute, giving Butler an early 1-0 lead.
As the game progressed, the Grizzlies continued the noise in the 33rd minute of play as freshman defender Brittany Murray made Tonkawa pay for a turnover, extending their lead to 2-0.
The Mavericks would finally respond in the 44th minute of play as sophomore midfielder Maddie Cochran gave light to the Mavericks, scoring on a chip shot just over Butler’s sophomore goaltender Lexi Winkle’s head.
As the Grizzlies looked to put this game away, freshman midfielder Maizi Garwood set up to take a corner kick. Sophomore defender Sandra Thiman rushed in the box and headed the ball into the top right corner to extend the Grizzlies lead to 3-1.
The Butler defense held up for the remainder of the game to clinch their first win of the season.
“For tonight’s game we had two objectives… the first objective was to win, and the second objective was to create more goal scoring chances,” Head Coach Adam Hunter said. “We did create more chances. I think we ended up with 15, 16 shots which is more than our exhibition…”
The Grizzlies look to stay on track to start the season as they will travel up to Ada, Oklahoma this weekend to face off against Seminole State (Oklahoma) Trojans on Saturday, Aug. 24, and facing No. 19 Hill (Texas) Rebels on Sunday, Aug. 25.
“I would like to get out of the weekend 3-0, but we are going to play three games in four days,” Hunter said. “We are going to have some adversity in front of us.”
