Sports: Eagles topple Louisiana 4-1

Eastern secures the win in its last home match against non-conference opponents

Eastern Washington Women's Soccer dominated its game against Louisiana today, taking the win 4-1. Eastern shared the ball today as four different Eagles scored.

"It feels good. We talked a lot about these one-goal games for us the last couple of weeks. We thought we were a powder keg ready to go off," head coach Missy Strasburg said.

"This was a really challenging opponent. Louisiana is quite good, and they put up quite a good challenge. It felt good to really put goals on a team we had deep respect for. It was nice to get a lot of people involved and scoring all over the board. There was a big contribution from the bench today. [Louisiana] really came out hot in the first 20 minutes in its previous match and we expected a similar effort from them. We talked a lot about bending, but not breaking, and staying accountable to our details, while minimizing their quality opportunities. Kam [Willoughby] came up with some big saves early."

The Eagles had a strong day on defense, as Kamryn Willoughby had nine saves in the 77 minutes that she played. The first goal of the match came from Madison Kem, once again, on a penalty kick. In the 34^th minute, Louisiana caused a foul that set up Kem to score her second goal on the season.

Within 10 minutes after Kem scored, senior Corina Froehle knocked in her first career goal as an Eagle. As she collected the pass from Chloe Pattison, with great footwork and maneuvering around a defender, Froehle was able to score in the bottom left corner of the goal.

"It was the very thing we talked about with [Corina]," Strasburg said. "Bring being an older player that understands the circumstances of the game and what's about to happen."

At the 59^th minute, Froehle was back at it again, feeding Mya Elder-Hammond who got the ball into the goal. The Eagles were set up for a corner kick on the left side of the goal, and Elder-Hammond came from the middle to get get her shot into the left portion of the goal. That was Elder-Hammond's first goal of the season and the third goal of the match for Eastern.

"You can see the energy from the team when [Mya] scores," Strasburg described. "They were super pumped for her, and it doesn't take a lot for this team to celebrate each other."

For Louisiana at the 71^st minute, Lucy Ortiz was able to score from a penalty kick getting herself her first goal of the season and the Ragin' Cajuns first goal. Ortiz was able to put the ball in the back-left corner of the goal.

Not too long after the goal from Louisiana, in the 73^rd minute of play, Grace Terrill got a solo goal to put the Eagles up 4-1 and secure the win. Rushing pass defenders, Terrill used great footwork to get around the defender and get her first goal of the season as well.

Eastern Washington improves to 3-3-2 on the season, while Louisiana is now 1-3-3. 

Strasburg talked about closing out the non-conference schedule on the road next weekend. "Both [San Jose State and Boise State] are perennial top finalist teams in the Mountain West. We still have a tough task before us before we get into Big Sky play, but that's by design. We are looking for teams to push us to be our best self. I think this is the best 90 minutes we have put together as a team."

End of game Stats:

• Eastern collected 15 total shots in the match. Louisiana had 13.
• The Eagles had 11 corner kicks. Rajin' Cajuns had three.
• Kamryn Willoughby had nine saves today. Louisiana had one.
• Total shots for Eastern was 15, with five of those being on goal.
• Louisiana had 13 total shots, with five of those on goal.

Next Up:
Eastern Washington will travel to California and Idaho to close out its non-conference matches before they return home to start in the Big Sky. First up, the Eagles will be at San Jose State on Thursday, September 15^th to face the Spartans at 7 p.m. Pacific Time. After California, Eastern will be in Boise, Idaho on Sunday, September 18^th to play the Boise State Broncos at 12 p.m.