PURCHASE, N.Y. - Manhattanville College women's soccer celebrated its senior class on Saturday afternoon with a 3-1 victory against St. Joseph's-Long Island. The Valiants now reside at 7-5-3 with a 4-3-3 record in conference play, with one final contest left to play.
Prior to kickoff, the Valiants honored their four seniors,
Alexa Devlin (North Caldwell, N.J./West Essex Regional),
Megan Leser (Ossining, N.Y./Ossining),
Skyla Marrone (East Northport, N.Y./St. Anthony's), and
Daniela Perez Gonzalez (Carolina, Puerto Rico/Colegio San Antonio) for their contributions and accolades with a senior day celebration.
Following twenty minutes of scoreless action, Manhattanville kicked off the scoring in the 22nd minute, as senior day honoree Leser laid a ball off for
Jennifer Xiong (Connelly Springs, N.C./East Burke), who slotted it under the Golden Eagles keeper for the opening tally.
St. Joseph's would answer back just over ten minutes later after Brooke Esposito fed a pass to teammate Emma Furey, who would then fire a shot on the net, being deflected by the Valiants' backline leading the shot to take an awkward bounce to tie the game at one all.
From there,
Kelly Barrera (Port Chester, NY/Port Chester High School) would play Xiong the ball that would net herself a brace, firing off a shot from deep that soared over the Golden Eagles netminder's head to put the Valiants back on top, 2-1, right before the halftime whistle.
Stephanie Sanchez (Rye, N.Y./The Masters School) would add on an insurance goal shortly after play resumed, as her freekick from just outside the box curled into the top left corner of the net, making the crowd erupt, and giving Manhattanville a 3-1 lead.
That score would hold until the final whistle as the Valiants locked down the defensive third in the final 45 minutes, allowing only four shots in the half.
Macey Girard (Branford, Conn./Branford) played all ninety minutes in net, producing four saves to bring her season save total to 75 saves with an impressive 0.824 save percentage.
Efforts were led by
Natalie Aracena (Bronx, N.Y./Riverdale Kingsbride Academy), Sanchez, and Xiong who all produced three shots. Barrera, Perez Gonzalez, and Parisi all tallied one shot in the contest.
Up Next
The Valiants close out their regular season on Oct. 24, when they travel to Long Island to take on Old Westbury at 3:30 p.m. at Panther Park.
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