Another week of Pride sports is in the books, with eight different teams across campus continuing to grind it out each and every day to collect wins.
Field Hockey
The Mia Olsen-coached Pride have been rolling the past couple of games, winning three straight, with the last two victories being convincing wins of 5-1 and 5-0. The Pride traveled to Newport, R.I., to take on Salve Regina on Sept. 16, where the winning streak ended in a close 5-4 affair to bring their record to 3-3 on the season. The Pride got contributions across the board, with goals from Hailey Gaydos, Molly Collins, Camryn Morano, and Kaitlin Bardellini, but it wasn’t enough as Shannon Kennedy and Julia Decker got two and three goals, respectively, to collect the win.
Men’s soccer
Coming off of a 1-0 win against Curry College on Sept. 12 – their first of the season – the Pride extended the winning streak to two with a 2-0 win against Emerson Sept. 16. The Pride held Emerson to only five shots on goal, with goalkeeper Noah Pote blocking all five from the net. The two goals for Springfield came from Parker Thornton and Chris Cruz. The Pride also hosted Wesleyan on Sept. 19, and even though they held Wesleyan to just four shots on goal, the Pride did fall 1-0 on a Lucas Ruehlemann strike. This brought Springfield’s record overall on the year to 2-3-1, as the Pride will travel to Worcester to play Clark on Saturday.
Women’s soccer
After starting the season 2-0-2, the Pride suffered their first loss of the year, falling to Williams College, by a final score of 3-0 on Sept. 13. Tori Huang, Jaquelin Nordhoff and Isabel Konijnenberg all chipped in goals against Pride goalkeeper Taryn Ryan to secure the win. However, they rebounded on Sept. 17, winning 6-1 against Salve Regina. In that contest, Ryan only allowed one goal on six shots, as the Pride steamrolled their way to victory. Kayla McGrath did the most damage for the Pride, bagging two goals, and Jen Walker, Julia Mateus, Kaitlyn Suller and Lexi Stone all collected one each.
Women’s volleyball
Moira Long’s squad has been red hot all year, going 10-1 on the season so far, as well as winning nine of their games in straight sets. The Pride started out the week strong, beating Endicott on the road 3-0, and then traveled to Schenectady, where they beat Union and Oneonta 3-0 on Friday and Nichols 3-0 on Saturday. Junior Riley Donahue continues to stand as one of the best players on the Pride with double digit kills in three of her last five games, and sophomore Maeve Voltz added 16 kills over the three games in Schenectady on top of earning the NEWMAC Defensive Athlete of the Week for Women’s Volleyball. The Pride also collected another win on Tuesday against Wheaton College, where they once again won 3-0.
Football
The Pride are coming off of two consecutive NEWMAC championships, with hopes of winning it for the second year in a row. However, the Pride were handed their first loss of the season to Union on Sept. 15 by a score of 34-7. The Pride struggled to generate much offense, as the highlight of the game for Springfield was a 64-yard punt return touchdown by Joe Maurer. Pride QB Jacob Silvester finished the night going 0-2 with an interception, as Michael Fiore and Donovan Pacatte both had two touchdowns for Union in a convincing win.
Men’s cross country
Springfield’s third meet of the season was also its biggest meet of the year so far, as the Pride traveled to Dartmouth, Mass., and took part in the UMass-Dartmouth Invitational. The Pride placed 22nd out of 39 teams while facing teams from all three divisions, racking up a total of 596 points. Springfield also placed nine spots higher than crosstown foe Western New England, who placed 29th and also placed 12 spots ahead of NEWMAC rival Salve Regina. Chris Vayda had the best time for the Pride in the 8K run with a time of 25:08:32.
Women’s cross country
The Pride women also competed at the UMass Dartmouth Invitational, where they placed 18th out of 37 schools, with 486 points. While the Pride also placed higher than Western New England and NEWMAC foe Wheaton, they could not quite move ahead of Salve Regina, Mount Holyoke or Wellesley. Maddie Shea placed highest out of the other Pride members for the Women’s 5K varsity run with a time of 19:00:65, as Kate Bonanno finished behind her at 19:40:86.
Golf
The Springfield College men’s golf team competed at Taconic Golf Club in Williamstown, Mass, as part of the Williams Invitational. The event lasted the course of the weekend, and Springfield finished 19th out of 22 teams, with 646 strokes. Nicholas DeMaio led the Pride with 78 strokes on the par-71 course, while Jack Diefenderfer shot an incredible 37 on the front nine to finish with an overall score of 80 on day one. On day two, it was David Girouard who had a score of 78, with DeMaio finishing 71st overall. The team will next go to Bowdoin to take part in the Bowdoin Invitational on Sept. 23-24 in Maine.
Photo courtesy of Springfield College Athletics