By Mariia Yazepova | Staff Writer
This year’s battle of the Whits went to the hosting Pirates. The Whitworth women’s soccer team beat the visiting Blues 6-0, therefore breaking a three-game losing streak.
Laura Pierson opened the scoring barrage for Whitworth with a blazing-quick goal. Taliya Miyama set up the Tacoma Valley senior who scored after just 120 seconds of gameplay.
Five minutes later, Savannah Acpal inserted her name in the scoring column with a precise bottom-left equalizer after another assist from Miyama.
“We wanted to show everyone who we are, so the first two goals felt good,” said Head Coach Cameron Bushéy.
Whitworth finished the first half with three more total shots (6-3) while both goalies had one save each.
Whitworth kept applying pressure on the offensive end in the second half. Lauryn Roszak bumped the lead to 3-0 after scoring in the 56th minute.
Only four minutes later, the Pirates increased the lead to 4-0. Camryn Gardner set up Baylee Trejo who hit the center of the net.
The Blues raised their level of aggressiveness. They started to string multiple passes, until the 70th minute during which Emma Foulk stole the ball and scored in a breakaway opportunity.
The final score was set by Kylee Russell who scored the open net goal.
The Pirates had both more total shots (12-10) and shots on goal (8-3). Whitworth was the only team with accumulated corner kicks (4-0).
“Being that I’ve known Whitworth for a long time, the Eastern Washington rivalry is like Yankees – Red Sox to me,” Bushey said. “I feel really good for that win – goals have had a long time coming for us, so we decided to score them all on one day.”
Bushey emphasized some of the things his team hopes to keep up for the rest of the season.
“We just want to be consistent, so I don’t look at many moments of the game as that different than usual,” Bushey said. “I thought we were excellent and today we limited our mistakes.”
The Pirates will play their next game at Linfield on Oct. 8.