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Tuesday, March 19, 2024
The Observer

Belles off to solid start with two wins

Saint Mary's soccer team is off to its best start in recent memory. The Belles are 2-0 after a pair of impressive weekend victories at Marietta, Ohio. On Saturday, Saint Mary's kicked off their season with a 3-1 win over the State University of New York-Brockport (SUNY). Traditionally, SUNY has been an East-Coast powerhouse. In the past three years, SUNY had records of 11-6-3, 12-5-1 and 14-8-0. But the Belles were undeterred. Junior Jen Concannon scored two goals and senior Stephanie Artnak two assists for Saint Mary's. Freshman Caroyln Logan added a goal and an assist. "That was a quality win," coach Peter Haring said. "That team was very aggressive from an attack standpoint."SUNY bombarded Belles goalkeepers with an array of attacks and corner kicks. Saint Mary's defense only allowed one goal, but SUNY threatened to score multiple times."Their lone goal came off of a corner kick," Haring said. "They had 13 or 14 corner kicks. That's way too many."Freshman Nicole Leach started in goal for Saint Mary's and played the first half. After SUNY scored on a high header, Haring switched to a taller goalie at halftime. Freshman Laura Heline played the second half and made 12 saves.Heline started and made five saves in Sunday's 2-1 double-overtime victory over Marietta. Freshman Ashley Hinton scored the first Belles goal on Carolyn Logan's second assist of the season. Concannon then scored her third goal of the season in the second sudden-death overtime to propel Saint Mary's to victory. Concannon's goal ensured that Haring would be the first Saint Mary's coach to start his career with consecutive victories. On Saturday, the team took him out to eat in order to mark the team's victorious debut. "I'm not a big fan of Dairy Queen," Haring said. "But the team is, so that's how we celebrated."The Belles play Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. at Taylor.