The top-ranked women’s soccer team stormed past the Agnes Scott College Scotties Wednesday night, winning 5-0. With the win, the Eagles are still undefeated on the season, running their record to 8-0-2 and extending their winning streak to four games.
Emory dominated possession from the start of the game but were kept off the scoreboard until the thirty-ninth minute of play when junior midfielder Kelly Costopoulos put a shot past the Scotties goalkeeper on an assist from sophomore forward Charlotte Butker.
Costopoulos leads the Eagles with five goals on the season and improved to tenth in program history with seven game-winning goals, while Butker notched her United Athletic Association (UAA) best eighth assist.
The Eagles struck again in a matter of minutes. In the forty-second minute, sophomore midfielder Claudia Rowe launched a corner kick that was deflected by senior midfielder Lee Bachouros and found Butker in the box who knocked it in.
Just a minute later, Rowe was fouled inside the six-yard box, leading to a penalty kick that senior defender Ashley Kaiser put past the goalkeeper, extending the Eagles’ lead to 3-0 at the end of the first half. The goal was the first of Kaiser’s career.
The second frame provided more of the same for the Eagles. In the sixty-third minute of play, senior forward Katy Kruse scored her third goal on the season on a long pass across the field from freshman midfielder Ally Peterson.
Freshman midfielder Ariana Robin ended the scoring on the night with her first career goal, which deflected off a defender and found its way into the net in the eighty-third minute. Emory dominated on both sides of the ball. Agnes Scott did not register a single shot on goal and only got off two shots in total, both of which were in the second frame. The Eagles, meanwhile, peppered the Scotties’ net with 40 shots, 22 of which were on goal.
It was the Eagles’ third time in the last four games that they held their opponent without a shot on goal.
Senior goalkeeper Erica Stein played the entirety of the first frame to earn the win and move to 4-0-0 on the season, while senior Kaele Leonard and sophomore Gabrielle Pelura also saw time in goal.
It was a team effort for the Eagles, but the offensive explosion was spurred by Butker’s team-leading six shots, four of which were on goal. The junior forward also leads the team in points on the season with 16.
Butker is only the sixth player in Emory history to record either a goal or an assist in six consecutive games. She is one game shy of the program record for most consecutive games with a point.
“Our team is great at movement of the ball,” Butker said. “They make the runs, and I just have to feed them the ball.”
Kruse and sophomore forward Emily Feldman added to the assault with five and four shots, respectively.Agnes Scott, who stayed competitive on the strength of their goalkeepers’ 17 saves, dropped to 5-7-0 on the season.
The blowout was par on for the course for the Eagles who registered their sixth shutout of the season and have outscored their last seven opponents by a score of 28-2. The victory extended the team’s regular season streak to 34 games, and its home undefeated streak to 21 games. The Eagles finished a season-long six-game homestand with a record of 5-0-1 During the stretch, the team outshot their opponents 195-14.
They will next take the field in a road contest against eighth-ranked Washington University (Mo.) Bears on Oct. 7 in a key UAA contest. Both teams are 1-0 in conference play.
– By Ryan Smith
The Emory Wheel was founded in 1919 and is currently the only independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University. The Wheel publishes weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year, except during University holidays and scheduled publication intermissions.
The Wheel is financially and editorially independent from the University. All of its content is generated by the Wheel’s more than 100 student staff members and contributing writers, and its printing costs are covered by profits from self-generated advertising sales.
