By Billy Whyte
Staff Reporter
The Alabama women’s soccer team continued its hot start to the season by defeating Mercer 3-0 to improve to 5-0 on Sunday.
The Crimson Tide is usually considered a second half team, having scored only four of its 16 goals in the first half. They came out strong early against Mercer, though, scoring two goals in the first 15 minutes. Head coach Todd Bramble said getting the two goals early allowed the Tide to control the tempo of the game.
“It immediately puts the pressure on the other team to start chasing during the game,” Bramble said. “If they had any intentions of sitting back and keeping score 0-0 as long as possible or stealing a goal late, all of that gets thrown out the window where they got to come out at us. We can relax after getting the first and second goal and really just move the ball around.”
The Tide took the lead in the first five minutes when sophomore forward Theresa Diederich sailed a long shot over the keeper’s head for her fourth goal of the season. Ten minutes later, freshman forward Katie Bourgeois took the ball into the corner and crossed it to sophomore forward Pia Rijsdijk, who buried it past the keeper for the 2-0 lead.
“It was a good start for us knowing that we had the momentum so early in the game,” Diederich said “Really helped us settle down the rest of the game.”
The Tide added another goal in the second half when Rijsdijk scored her second goal of the game by tapping in a cross from junior forward Ariel Armijo past the keeper. It was the third straight game where the Tide had scored at least three goals and the second game in a row with at least 30 shots. Rijsdijk credits their offense’s success so far to the team’s large variety of offensive playmakers.
“It’s just awesome having so many good offensive players,” Rijsdijk said. “Everyone can score, it’s not just one player we expect to score like some team’s do, it’s everyone.”
The Tide will face Maryland at home this Thursday in its last non-conference game. It will be an important game for the Tide as it will let the team know where it stands heading into conference play.
“It’s a huge game from a preparation stand point,” Bramble said. “It’s important to see how good we will be against a good ACC team and will answer a lot of the questions that we need to have answered before conference play.”
