Spartans slay Eagles
The Castleton Women’s soccer team took a short 15-minute ride to Green Mountain College Saturday for a 1:30 p.m. NAC showdown with the Eagles in a heavy downpour.
The Spartans, at 8-6-1 overall and 5-1-1 in the NAC, continued to roll through conference play as they shut out Green Mountain 5-0 and got outstanding effort from their young group of players.
The team continued to show great dominance defensively by holding the Eagles to only one shot on goal. The Eagles dropped to 2-11 overall and 1-6 in NAC play.
The combined effort of sophomore goalie Jess Binkowski and freshman goalie Olivia Maher led to the seventh shutout of the season for Castleton.
“We work really well as a unit and didn’t allow them opportunities to shoot by communicating throughout the whole back,” Binkowski said. “
Binkowski has started all 15 games at goalie for the Spartans this season and has proven to be one of the top goalies in the conference.
“I definitely have a lot of help from my defenders in front of me. They allow minimal shots each game, which allows me to be confident,” she said.
Castleton controlled the tempo of the game right from the opening whistle and the would quickly find the scoreboard when junior midfielder Jess Phillips drained her second goal of the year just three minutes in the first half. But she wouldn’t be the lone scorer for long as four other different Spartans would go on to score as well, including one goal from seniors Jenna Bostwick and Justine Rotz, who scored her first goal as a Spartan.
Castleton outshot the Eagles by 28 shots and made it very difficult for the Green Mountain to do anything offensively.
“We’ve been putting in a lot of hard work at practice and our coaches are so dedicated to help us at getting better, but most importantly we have great team morale,” freshman Casey Rodenberg said.
The Spartans will next play next at Maine Maritime on Oct. 25.