After winless season, team gets victory over Northern Illinois

While still early in the season, the UND Women’s Soccer team seems to be on a better track than the year before.

Last year, UND struggled through a 1-15-1 season in which the team struggled to put points on the board.

This year though, the team has started off much hotter than the previous seasons.

On Sunday, the Green and White netted their second win of the season against South Dakota, thrashing them 4-0.

The game started off relatively competitive as both teams were going back and forth through the first half.

It was not until the 40th minute that things started to heat up.

Coming down the field, Veronica Kessler’s initial shot was blocked by South Dakota’s goalie. But through a solid second effort, Kessler was able to clean up her own rebound and put it in the back of the net.

The floodgates truly started to open in the second half when the Green and White exploded back onto the scoreboard.

After the 70th minute, it was all UND yet again. Freshman forward Riley Koberinski got the scoring going with a goal in the 73rd minute.

Riley Kessler and Zoe Foster would follow suit and within a five minute span, UND was up 4-0, completely putting the game out of reach for the Coyotes.

“We made a couple of adjustments, especially with the midfield and getting our outside backs involved more in the attack.” UND coach Matt Kellogg said. “And you can see when you throw numbers at even a quality team like South Dakota, you know, they can only deal with so much before they’re gonna break.”

Sunday’s match marked a career day for Kessler, as the freshman scored her first and second ever goals in her college career.

On the other side of the field, UND’s defense came ready to play and another freshman had a career day.

Olivia Swenson recorded her first ever-collegiate shutout, facing only nine shots thanks to her defenders.

The Green and White swarmed South Dakota’s forwards, making life difficult when the Coyotes tried to shoot the ball and get their offense going.

After Sunday’s thorough victory over South Dakota, UND moves to 2-1 on the season, doubling the team’s win total from the year before.

With the four goals today and two in the win over Northern Illinois, the Green and White also equaled last year’s goal total at six goals.

“We got a lot of young players who are starting to really come into their own.” Kellogg said. “A lot of veterans are stepping up in many ways on the field, off the field to help that progression go forward and we set some pretty lofty goals because we thought we had the firepower and we’re not gonna rest until we get into the Big Sky tournament.”

UND will look to continue to build off of this solid start in the coming week during the next two home games.

On Friday September 4, UND takes on Green Bay and faces Omaha on Sunday, September 6, all at Bronson Field.

Alex Bertsch is editor-in-chief for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected]