Machias, ME - The Central Maine Mustangs Women's Soccer team opened their season on the road with a 4-1 loss at Machias in a Friday evening contest. Using a patchwork lineup due to the unavailability of their two most powerful offensive weapons as a result of injury, the Lady Mustangs spent most of the game using different combinations of players in the midfield and forward positions trying to find the right connections. Head Coach Rob Rodriguez commented that "a few weeks from now we would have no trouble moving players around because we have the numbers and a good combination of returning players and skilled versatile freshmen, but the transition from the high school game to college is not an easy one and to expect our new players to play in unfamiliar positions in a new, complicated playing scheme against a strong opponent is probably asking more than what they can give us after just eleven days together. But this will be a good team, the fixes that we have to make are easy ones, we just need a little more time to do that."
The game remained scoreless until the midpoint of the first half when Machias midfielder Josie Griffin broke through the Mustang defense to score the first goal of the game putting the Clippers up 1-0. Central Maine regrouped after that and went into half-time down 1-0. Three unanswered Machias goals by McKenna Roden, Amber Chasse, and another by Griffin midway through the second half saw the Mustangs trailing 4-0 until the last five minutes of the game when defensive midfielder Stephanie Jones (Wiscasset, ME) playing her first competitive game after two years of back to back knee injuries, cut across midfield with the ball to find freshman Rachel Dunn (Marshfield, MA) with a perfect pass, who blasted a long shot over the Clippers goalkeeper for her first collegiate goal. Returning sophomore goalkeeper Ali Sult (Lisbon, ME), showed why she was named all-conference last year giving a 25-save performance that even drew praise from a very enthusiastic Machias crowd.
The Lady Mustangs are back in action next Saturday, Sept 8 in Randolph, VT against the Vermont Tech Knights.