Sinking four beautiful goals and keeping a clean sheet, the Chico State women’s soccer team picked up its first win of the season on Sunday.
The scoring party against the Saint Martin’s Saints started in the 23rd minute when a beautiful pass from senior midfielder Taylor McMahon found the cutting freshman Makayla Quesada, who struck the ball low center and past the outreached goalkeeper.
“I knew if I gave everything, like my body and everything to get anything on it, hopefully it’d be a goal, and it was a goal,” Quesada said.
The Wildcats celebrated their first goal of the season, but weren’t close to being done for the game.
Breaking away from the action in the 34th minute, junior Olivia Hohnstein dashed through the seam towards the goal with a clear path courtesy of passes from freshman Natalie Nevarez and senior forward Jiana Martin. Hohnstein eyed the goal and smashed the ball to the high right side, aiming true, the ball pounded the back of the net to double the Wildcats score.
In the 53rd minute, chaos in the penalty area resulted in yet another Wildcat score. McMahon spotted an opening among the mix of white and black jerseys, precisely tapping the ball over the diving Saints goalkeeper for the third Wildcat goal of the afternoon.
Even after three goals, the Wildcats were still hungry for more. With the clock ticking down in the 87th minute, junior Laila Hadid rushed the ball down the field, slashing it towards the goal from the right sideline. Spinning toward the goal, it seemed as if the ball would rebound off of the post until it struck a Saint Martin’s player and found its way past the goalie, earning another Wildcat score.
The four goals on 18 shots proved more than enough to push the Wildcats through the 90 minutes. The Saints were unable to penetrate the Wildcats physical defense, which tallied 10 fouls but no cards.
Junior goalkeeper Claire Schnabel dynamically stopped four balls from finding the back of the net, playing a huge part in holding the Saints scoreless.
“We learned a lot, scoring lots of goals today definitely helped us confidence wise,” Hohnstein said. “Just getting those in will be helpful to have some fire to score more goals.”
With a record of 1-2-1, the Wildcats will search for their second win of the season on Thursday vs Dominican at 3 p.m. in San Rafael.
For information about all Chico State athletics or to keep up with the game live, visit the Wildcat home page, or watch through FloSports.
Aiyana Curry can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].
