The No. 23 NMU women’s soccer team is back home after traveling to Illinois, playing two teams and coming out on top in both games. The ‘Cats are now 4-0 to kick off the season and have not allowed their opponents to score a goal for the past three matches.
“It was good to see the team’s resiliency, to be able to fight through some more difficult moments and show that they’ve got some grit, but there’s still a long way to go,” Head Coach Jon Sandoval said. “I think right now the big message to this team is like, ‘stay in the now, stay in the present.’”
On Friday the ‘Cats kicked off the away trip playing against Lewis University. The Wildcats went on to win 3-0 with all three goals in the game being scored by second year forward Molly Pistorius, who was also voted the GLIAC offensive player of the week for her performances last week.
“I think the biggest thing to know about Molly is that she works hard on both sides of the ball. She doesn’t get nearly enough credit for what she does for us defensively,” Sandoval said. “Her ability to press the ball, to pick up second balls, to hold it and connect lines for us is massive … to have a player that has all those attributes, but to be a great locker room president … is rare.”
The ‘Cats also took on Illinois Springfield last Sunday where they would get the win with a final score of 2-0. One goal came from second year forward Hannah Kastamo and the other goal from junior forward Stephanie Trujillo. The Wildcats will get ready to kick off the rest of the season playing GLIAC conference teams, starting with Parkside on Friday, Sept. 15th at 3 p.m. and Purdue-NW, Sunday, Sept. 17th at 12 p.m. This weekend is also Alumni weekend and will happen just before the game against Parkside on Friday.
“It’s going to take a lot on both sides of the ball to get a result to get a win against Parkside. It takes everything and we have to be sharp on a lot of phases in every phase of the game in order to get a result,” Sandoval said. “And then obviously we’ll start to look towards Purdue afterwards, but right now, our sole focus is on Parkside.”
