EWING – The big question for the women’s soccer team’s face off between TCNJ and Rutgers Newark: which team will sustain its record?
TCNJ’s undefeated women’s soccer team will play against Rutgers Newark on Saturday, Sept. 30 for a New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) game. At 1 p.m., the TCNJ soccer complex will host the game that can decide if the Lions will maintain their stellar season record, which is a season streak of 8-0.
The team has done its best to tackle the NJAC, and its efforts are paying off. Thus far the Lion’s have been thriving in the conference with a 3-0 record under their belts. The last NJAC game was on Wednesday, Sept. 27, where the Lion’s defeated Rutgers-Camden (5-0). The other NJAC games the Lions have played, against William Paterson and New Jersey City University, were also impressive wins, 4-0 and 8-0 respectively.
The Lions are not the only team with a record to uphold. Rutgers-Newark are maintaining a winning away-game streak of 6-0, and all losses they suffered took place at their home stadium (1-3).
Ahead of this conference game, the Scarlet Raiders are nurturing a 2-1 record after defeating both Rutgers Camden (2-0) and New Jersey City University (2-1) and falling to Kean University (1-0).
Although every team the Lions face brings new challenges, they are midway through their season and so far they have consistently kept opponents at bay. In the 723.45 minutes the Lions have played so far this season, not one goal has been scored against them.
Goalie Nicole DiPasquele, who has played for 609 minutes in this season alone, has kept the shutout going along with help from the Lions’ strong defense – making TCNJ women’s soccer the only Division III team keeping up this streak.
The success of the women’s soccer team is a group effort. TCNJ’s offensive players Christine Levering and Hannah Richman have scored the most goals for the Lions this season, 7 and 5 respectively, but the strong offensive line overall has helped bring the Lions bring home only victories for the few weeks of this season.
In light of their success, Head Coach Joe Russo wants the Lions remain focused on the challenge of a new game in front of them.
“It may look easy at the end of the night,” said Russo when talking about the Lions’ current record, “but I think they’ve been challenging games all the way through and I would expect nothing less on Saturday.”
Time will tell which team gets to walk away with its record intact.
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