AMHERST — It took the UMass women’s soccer team just shy of three minutes to find the back of the net – off the foot of Sarah Defreitas from well outside the box – against Syracuse on Thursday evening.

From there the Minutewomen didn’t look back, turning in what head coach Jason Dowiak called, “the best performance we’ve had all year.” UMass added another tally 10 minutes later to cruise to a 2-0 victory in its home opener at Rudd Field.

The Minutewomen (2-1-2) were on the road for their first four games of the season (1-1-2 in that stretch), and were coming off a hard-fought 2-1 loss at Yale. After the abnormally long away stretch to begin the year, UMass was ready to come home – and its play showed exactly that.

“Oh my god, it’s so nice to be home,” Dowiak said. “If we could play like this every day, it would be amazing, we would wanna never leave home. We challenged ourselves playing on the road for the first four games and got some really good results and saw some really good things. This was a culmination of being excited about being home and putting everything together that we wanted.”

Through five games now, UMass has already played against two Power 5 opponents. The Minutewomen tied Vanderbilt on Aug. 20 before defeating the Orange on Thursday. Seeing that they can play with some of the better programs in the country, Dowiak believes those two contests were a stepping stone for what this team can be in 2023.

“That’s a statement win for us,” Dowiak said. “Two Power 5 programs that we’ve gotten two great results against, that’s what we’re capable of, absolutely. We just want the girls to know, we’re doing this together.”

UMass’ second goal only occurred because of the sheer hustle shown from sophomore Nia Hislop. Hislop raced down the right side of the field to track down a ball – one that Syracuse keeper Shea Vanderbosch was also chasing after – on the edge of the goalie box. She beat Vanderbosch to it and delivered a perfect pass across the box to junior Ashley Lamond, who took one touch before blasting it by an Orange defender and into the empty net.

Following the two early goals, Syracuse seemed to be caught off guard by the lightning fast start from UMass. Possession time in the first half was completely dominated by the Minutewomen. They outshot the Orange 9-3 in the frame, and were on the attacking half of the field for what seemed like the majority of the 45 minutes.

“We honestly changed our tactics, changed the way that we pressed by recognizing some of the things that they were doing,” Dowiak said. “We didn’t want to give them an option to get out. We got those two early goals, made a few adjustments, and I think they struggled to deal with it.”

Shortly after, the game became much more physical. Syracuse (2-3) tried to take UMass out of its comfort zone by playing much more aggressively. Dowiak was proud of the way his team, one stacked with veteran leadership (22 players who are juniors or older), responded to that pressure.

“We don’t want anybody to come in here and think that they can push us around,” Dowiak said. “Our team is tough, we’ve got a really mature group. We have great leadership, and when they tried to get physical we just didn’t back down. I think we started to impose our will on them in the very early stages of the game, and that’s the attitude that we expect.”

Including senior goaltender Bella Mendoza (three saves, shutout victory), UMass put 20 different players on the field during Thursday’s contest – 17 of them seeing 18 minutes or more. The Minutewomen have one of the deepest teams in the Atlantic 10 Conference, and Dowiak knows he has a big advantage in that department.

“We used a lot of different players today,” Dowiak said. “Our strength, we keep saying, is the depth of our team. We trust all of our players. We created enough chances for it to be five, or six (goals) probably today, and it’s just awesome to see things start to click – especially in the home opener.”

UMass returns to action on Sunday when it hosts Bryant at 1 p.m. The Minutewomen look to build off their stellar play on their home turf.

]]>