Not one. Not two. Not three. The Belles netted seven goals as they dominated Albion 7-0 on Wednesday.
"We're pretty excited about the win," Belles senior captain Maddie Meckes said. "It was nice to get a lot of people some playing time. It was a real team effort and it's a good way to go into our upcoming game against Calvin [on Thursday]. They're usually good so we have that confidence."
Senior midfielder Ashley Morfin, sophomore midfielder Hillary Burton and freshman midfielder/forward Maggie Wenzel each scored two goals to lead the Belles' offensive attack.
"It was just good teamwork," Meckes said. "It was not like one person scored all the goals. It was really just a team effort. Everybody was working hard. Everyone wanted that goal for themselves and for the team."
Saint Mary's (5-1-1, 3-1 MIAA) got back in the win column after losing to Alma on Saturday. Meckes said it was important to play well to defeat a conference foe coming off the loss to Alma.
"It's always tough to lose but we bounced back pretty well and we proved that today," Meckes said. "It was just something we knew we had to go out and get the win against one of the weaker teams in our conference. It was just something we knew we needed to do and we went out and got it done."
Junior captain and midfielder Mollie Valencia got the scoring started early, when she buried a pass from freshman midfielder Maggie McLaughlin in the back of the net just five minutes into the game.
After two goals from Morfin, the Belles led 3-0 heading into halftime.
In the second half, the Saint Mary's offense was similarly dominant, as Burton scored less than three minutes into the half and the Belles never looked back, outshooting the Britons (0-7-1, 0-3-1) by the count of 32-4.
The defense, which has allowed just four goals this season, shut down Albion behind the joint effort of sophomore goalies Chanler Rosenbaum, Hannah Bruggeman and Nicole Papiernik. The shutout lowered Saint Mary's goals-against average to 0.57.
"[Our defense] played well," Meckes said. "All three of our keepers played today, but they didn't see much action. We did a good job of keeping it on [Albion's] half [of the field]. But we also possessed in the back and did a good job holding the line and not really letting anything through."
The Belles now have four shutouts this season and only allowed one goal against conference power Adrian. Meckes said the Belles need to keep winning against some of the top competition in the MIAA.
"We still want to do well in the conference and keep looking toward making the conference tournament," Meckes said. "We already beat Adrian so we're looking to take down some of the best teams like Calvin and just keep fighting for wins and playing hard."
Saint Mary's squares off with Calvin on Thursday in a home MIAA matchup.
Contact Mike Monaco at jmonaco@nd.edu
