The Wright State women’s soccer team capped off its preseason schedule Sunday night with a 2-1 victory over Evansville, giving the Raiders a 3-0 record in exhibition play.
The Raiders will begin their regular season on the road Friday against IPFW in Fort Wayne.
In the win over the Purple Aces, WSU head coach Pat Ferguson used 19 players in total, and kept the starting 11 in through the 60th minute. After the game, Ferguson praised his team, while acknowledging that there is still room for improvement.
“We were able to get to see everyone play today, we whittled it down and played primarily the kids that will play in the season,” Ferguson said. “It was good and bad. We did some good things today and we did some bad things.”
WSU broke open the scoring when senior attacking midfielder Emilie Fillion scored in the 30th minute. Sophomore midfielder Mackenzie Hamilton later scored in the 70th minute to give the Raiders a 2-0 lead.
The Purple Aces answered in the 74th minute when freshmen midfielder Emily Griebel’s strike from 20 yards out went top shelf on Raiders’ backup goalkeeper Halle Pyle to cut WSU’s lead to 2-1.
Though both teams finished the game with 13 shots each, the Raiders kept Purple Aces goalkeeper Simone Busby active as WSU fired nine shots on target compared to just three for the Evansville.
Of the 19 players Ferguson used in Sunday’s contest, 18 have returned from last year’s squad which was a goal away from making the NCAA tournament.
Fillion believes with familiarity, comes success.
“I think it is really good that there are so many returners because we can find each other really well on the field,” Fillion said. “We see each other’s runs and the chemistry is already there which is going to be very helpful throughout the season.”
