FARMVILLE, Va. – In a scoreless match between two evenly matched foes, all it takes is one moment of grit to separate the two sides. Good thing Catharine Forst plays for Longwood women’s soccer.
Forst delivered the lone goal of the match in a 1-0 win for Longwood in their season opener against Richmond on Thursday night in Farmville. The defense made it stick.
“It’s always nice to start the season with a win,” Dyer said. “Richmond had most of the ball and chances, so we had to weather the storm more than we’d like. We had our moments going forward, but in the end we had to scrap for that goal off the corner kick. It’s ironic because we had to defend so many on the other end.”
The corner came in the 67thth minute for the Lancers (1-0), and the ball bounced around at the corner of the six-yard box. Forst slipped a seeing-eye ball through the tangled mass of legs into the back of the net. It was the second game winner of her Lancer career.
That was enough for a defense that bent but refused to break, a hallmark for teams coached by Todd Dyerwho is starting his 29th year at the helm of the Longwood women’s soccer program.
Richmond (0-1) applied constant pressure throughout the match, but the Lancer back line of Caroline Lydecker, Amanda Arnone, Hannah McGarvey and Kaley Unger repeatedly turned aside the Spiders in the final quarter of the field.
While Richmond fired 25 shots, only eight were on target as Longwood forced the Spiders to launch most of their shots outside the 18-yard box. That time and space allowed senior goalkeeper Mary Kate Levush to turn aside seven, with her back line adding another save on a rebound chance.
“Our soccer can and will improve, but our fight and grit is what got us through tonight, especially on our backline where all four and our goalkeeper played 90 minutes and earned the shutout,” Dyer said.
The Lancers return to action on Sunday afternoon as they host UMBC at 2 pm
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