Women’s soccer dominates

The women’s soccer team continues their domination of the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) with their wins this week over Manchester University and Anderson University (Ind.). The Engineers outscored their opponents this week a total of 7-0. With these two wins, the Engineers extend their school record winning streak to eight. They have improved their record to 11-2 overall and stay undefeated at 5-0 in HCAC play.

With their continued success, the Engineers have moved up two spots to 5th in the Great Lakes Regional Poll released by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA). They also moved up to 4th place in d3kicks.com’s Great Lakes Poll. D3kicks.com uses a math-based formula to determine weekly power rankings.

Earlier this week, the HCAC named freshman civil engineering major Molly Richardson the female player of the month. Richardson was picked as Rose-Hulman’s nominee for all female athletics and was chosen over the other eight HCAC institution’s female nominees. She is also the first Rose women’s soccer player to receive the award. Richardson currently leads the Engineer offense with 11 goals and 26 points, adding eight of her goals during the team’s current eight game winning streak.

The Engineer’s statistics continue to improve and become more impressive as the season presses on. Besides Richardson’s impressive stats, seniors Jennifer Gordon, Julie Roebel and Sarah Graber add a great deal of power to the Engineer offense. Gordon, a biomedical engineering major, has four goals and 11 assists, adding 19 points. Roebel, a civil engineering major, comes in second on the team in goals adding eight of her own and totaling 17 points. Graber, a mechanical engineering major, also reached double figures with 15 points on five goals and five assists. The Engineers have outshot their two most recent opponents a combined 46-3. They have also outscored their opponents this season an incredible 39-11.

Defensively, the Engineers hold an impressive 0.84 goals against average (GAA), only allowing 11 goals in 13 matches. Senior goalkeeper Rachel Miller currently holds her own 0.70 GAA with 39 saves in 1,024 minutes of play. More impressively, Miller has only allowed two goals in the last 687 minutes, earning her 0.26 GAA over the stretch.

The Engineers take on Finlandia University today at noon at Jim Rendel Field. They then travel to Blackburn University on Sunday in a 1 p.m. matchup. The Engineers only have six regular season matches left this year and need two wins in their last three HCAC games to clinch the top seed for the league tournament in November.