Grand Rapids, Mich. — Eight seniors celebrated, six goals scored and another shutout in the books. Despite the rainy weather, Saturday afternoon (Oct. 21) went pretty well for the No. 7-ranked Aquinas women's soccer team.
The Saints (12-0-3, 7-0-2 WHAC) celebrated a 6-0 win over Cleary (2-14, 0-9 WHAC) on Senior Day to get one step closer to winning the program's fourth straight WHAC regular season title.
The first half featured AQ goals from
Laia Cunill (7th minute),
Stephanie Ramos (30th minute) and
Macy Hollingsworth (33rd minute).
Maeva Lichtensteiger and
Marie-Louise Abild picked up assists.
Katelyn Kahael, one of the eight seniors, scored her first goal of the season in the 65th minute to give Aquinas a 4-0 advantage.
Tempers flared half a minute later as a confrontation at midfield between Cleary's Shayne Krystyniak and Ramos produced a straight red card to Krystyniak and a yellow to Ramos.
Ingrid Hentemann was also shown a yellow card for the Saints.
Up a player, Aquinas scored two more times. Lichtensteiger buried her seventh of the season in the 70th minute, assisted by
Emily Gignac, and
Brittney Probst capped the scoring in the 75th minute with
Candela Vigil-Escalera getting the helper.
The Saints dominated from start to finish, finishing with a 48-0 shots advantage (24-0 shots on target). The 48 shots is a season-high and the most the team has had since Sept. 25, 2021, when AQ had 55 shots in a 10-0 win over Cleary.
Aquinas played all three of its goalkeepers on Saturday. Sophomore starter
Kayla Shuk played the entire first half before letting a pair of seniors split the second half.
Alison Bishop played 35 minutes while
Liz Bays played the final 10 minutes.
All three weren't tested as the Cougars didn't manage to get a shot off.
The Saints have now recorded 12 straight shutouts and have only allowed two goals all season.
Before the game, the eight seniors who were recognized on Senior Day were Bishop, Bays, Hollingsworth,
Ariana Garcia, Abild, Kahael, Vigil-Escalera and
Edina Taerbaum.
AQ closes out the WHAC regular season with two road games next week against Lawrence Tech on Wednesday (Oct. 25) and Indiana Tech on Saturday (Oct. 28). Aquinas remains tied with Siena Heights at 7-0-2 (23 points) in the conference.