Navy Women Rebound From Opening Week Loss To Down West Chester
Navy Women Rebound From Opening Week Loss To Down West Chester
Annapolis, Md. — Navy women defeated West Chester with a strong defensive effort, rebounding from last week's loss to Queen's University Charlotte.
“Very happy with the performance of the team today. We had a difficult week of practice with the heat and humidity, but we powered through it,” said Head Coach Murph McCarthy of the 38-3 victory. "Today was a similar situation with the weather. We came out and definitely felt the heat, but that didn’t affect our focus or determination. You could tell how hard we had trained all week because we handled it very well, especially in the second half.”
Navy opened the scoring with a penalty goal from Abby Hershner in the 5th minute and discipline was an issue for West Chester early. More penalties set up Navy for another attacking chance. Charlotte D’Halluin kicked ahead and Ji Ji Kim got a bit of a weird bounce and took it in to score.
Navy pinned the Rams in their end and the defensive pressure set up a scrum for Navy and after a free kick D’Halluin tapped quickly and zipped through for the try and a 13-0 lead.
West Chester then had one of their best chances of the game and got over the tryline only to be held up.
It was in fact Navy who were next to score, blocking a clearance kick and surging on to exploit an overlap finished by Mia Young. That made it 18-0 and then as the half came to a close Megan Leitz received a pass out of a ruck and juked two defenders to score. Hershner converted and it was 25-0.
Hershner added a penalty early in the second half but West Chester kept working and their defense worked hard to keep Navy from scoring again. They were able to hold the ball up in-goal, but from the goalline dropout Ella Callahan set up Lilliana Gemma, who tiptoed down the sideline to score and make the lead 33-0.
Kerra Miller finished off a period of pressure with a pick-and-go for Navy's final try, and West Chester finished the game with their first points of the game courtesy of a penalty goal from Emma Davies.
"I thought the team played well together," West Chester Head Coach Tony DeRemer said. "They showed tons of heart and resilience, and learned a lot about each other in the process. We had very little practice in the last two weeks, so our goal today was to do the basics well and use this game to build from. We did just that, and I am very excited for the rest of the season."
This was West Chester's opening game of the season and things don't get any easier next week as they visit Davenport. Navy will host Quinnipiac next week.
