Lady Knights Outmuscle Mustangs 5-1!

10.15.19

Warwick, R.I. – October 15, 2019: The CCRI Lady Knights soccer team traveled to Central Maine Community College in Auburn, ME to play the Mustangs for a match on Saturday. The Lady Knights defeated the Mustangs 5-1. With the victory CCRI improves to 5-3-1 overall.

This was the second time the Lady Knights and Mustangs met this year. Their first meeting was in the CCRI home opener which the Lady Knights won handily 5-0. With the Mustangs playing on their home pitch for the second meeting he Lady Knights knew they would be in for a much tougher contest. However, once again the Lady Knights amassed five goals on their way to victory.

The Lady Knights began the game slowly and though they did not dominate the possession from the opening whistle the play of center back Juliana Capraro (Foster, RI) thwarted any early efforts for the Mustangs. Head Coach Jim McGirr commented “Juliana Capraro played outstanding defensively!” Capraro’s defensive effort along with the rest of the CCRI defensive corps: Monique DaFonseca (Providence, RI), Adriana Lima (Pawtucket, RI), Brianna Jarrett (Westerly, RI) and anchored by keeper Maddie Brassard (Pawtucket, RI) allowed the Lady Knights’ strikers to create space and convert five of their scoring opportunities.

The dynamic duo of forward McKenna Leahy (Warwick, RI) and forward Giulia Marsella (Warwick, RI) once again worked their magic to score four of the CCRI five goals. Leahy scored two goals with assists while Marsella had two goals and one assist. Also offering some offense was defender Brianna Jarrett who also added a goal for the Lady Knights.

The first five minutes of the game was a bit of back and forth between both teams with neither team gaining a clear advantage. In the eighth minute Giulia Marsella tallied her first goal assisted by McKenna Leahy to make the score 1-0. Just three minutes later Marsella scored another again assisted by Leahy to make it 2-0 CCRI. Once again, three minutes later Leahy assisted another goal this time from defender Brianna Jarrett to make the score 3-0 CCRI. In the seventeenth minute Leahy joined the scoring action with an unassisted goal to give the Lady Knights a commanding 4-0 lead. The 10-minute offensive outburst from the Lady Knights provided clear separation and allowed CCRI to sit back and defender their lead. CCRI went into the half leading 4-0.

In the second half CCRI possessed the ball and kept possession until the 74th minute when Leahy found he back of the net again assisted by Marsella to give CCRI a 5-0 lead. In the final minutes of play the Mustangs tallied a goal which took the clean sheet away from Keeper Maddie Brassard but he lead was never in question as the Lady Knights would go on to prevail by the final count of 5-1.

Coach McGirr added about the Lady Knights play after the match: “Juliana Capraro was outstanding for us today defensively. Her reading of the game and then acting on her sound decisions is one of the reasons for our win. It took us a few minutes to get our rhythm going but once we did we ripped the game wide open. We had a 10 minute period where it went from 0-0 to 4-0, thanks in part to our attackers Giulia Marsella and McKenna Leahy. They provided the spark that we needed as we found quite a bit of space to operate in the attacking third of the field. Once again, even though these players are highlighted, it was a total team effort. We’re now focusing on our match on Wednesday.”

The next match for the Lady Knights will be Wednesday the 16th when will they will host the Bulldogs of Bunker Hill Community College for a match at 4pm at the CCRI Soccer Complex in Lincoln.

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The Community College of Rhode Island, New England's largest comprehensive community college, enrolls nearly 15,000 students in credit courses and thousands more in non-credit and job training classes. Its athletic program boasts 12 varsity programs and an academic support program for all student-athletes.