BRADFORD, Pa. – A dominant team performance pushed the Pitt-Bradford women's soccer team past the Hilbert Hawks, 7-0, on Tuesday afternoon in the regular season finale at the Kessel Athletic Complex.
Pitt-Bradford (14-4, 8-1) completely owned the match with the Hawks in every shape or fashion for the full 90 minutes. The Lady Panthers managed to outshoot Hilbert (4-11-1, 1-7-1) 22-2 in the contest with only one of the shots being on goal.
Freshman Sarah Dailey tallied the sixth, and second consecutive, shutout of her career by making the most of the few opportunities she had in the net. She needed just one save in the two shots taken by the visitors to keep the Hawks off the scoreboard.
Sophomore Melissa continued her magical run this season by scoring an eye-popping four goals to pace the Panthers offensively and grab her latest hat-trick. Smith fired a total of 10 shots, with all 10 being at the goalkeeper. She also added one assist for good measure.
Junior Maggie Boehler grabbed two goals in the contest and two assists to go with her four shots taken, three of which were on goal. Freshman Kaitlyn Donnelly finished with two assists, while Senior Casey Schimpf and junior Tess Follman each registered an assist as well.
Smith scored the first two goals of the contest back-to-back in the 30th and 31st minute of action. The team had barely caught its breath from the first goal when the second made its way past the keeper to give the Panthers the 2-0 lead.
If the two goals by Smith weren't quick enough, Boehler slipped a fast one by the Hawks' keeper less than a minute later off an assist from Smith that had the score at 3-0 before either team could blink. The Panthers carried the three-goal advantage into the break.
In the second half, it was freshman Kaitlyn Williams grabbing the first goal out of the locker room. Boehler sent a crossing pass from the right side of the box, and Williams beat the keeper to her right side for the 4-0 lead.
In typical quick-strike fashion, barely a minute went by when Smith was adding to her total by beating the keeper one versus one off a pass from Boehler. The Panthers now led 5-0 with nearly 30 minutes remaining.
In the 79th minute, Smith tallied her final goal on a pass from Donnelly, and Boehler finished the scoring with her goal in the 84th minute to end the scoring outbreak.
"I thought today was another very strong performance from the team in just about every area of the game," said head coach Mike Idland. "We are all certainly happy to have closed out conference play with several excellent performances. We'll enjoy it for the rest of the day and we'll be back out on the field training first thing tomorrow morning."
With the win, Pitt-Bradford clinches the No. 1 seed heading into the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference Tournament and a first round bye. The Lady Panthers will wait for games to be played out before knowing who they will host in the second round of the tournament on Wednesday, Nov. 5.
