The Carleton Ravens women’s soccer team took care of business against the Royal Military College of Canada Paladins with a 4-0 win on Sept. 11 at TAAG Park.
It was a hot, slightly overcast Sunday afternoon at TAAG Park, but Carleton played solidly throughout the match and improved as the game went on to secure its first victory of the season.
Ravens head coach Dom Oliveri spoke post-game about how this win shows the identity the Ravens are trying to build as the season continues.
“We’re trying to be a [possession-based] team,” Oliveri said. “We want to move the ball. We want to create movement and [cause] issues for opposing defences.”
Scoring started early for the Ravens, with fifth-year forward Chloe Doherty netting her first goal of the season to put Carleton up five minutes into the game. The goal came off a rebound that Doherty found and was able to head into the net.
The Ravens continued to apply pressure as the first half went on, using their positioning and a strong counterattack to exploit the Paladins’ back four.
Oliveri said the team was forced to make adjustments after producing a largely defensive 1-1 result last week against the Queen’s University Gaels.
“We had to be a little bit more defensive at Queen’s, to make sure we had a good structure,” Oliveri said. “Today we could open it up a little bit more and probably could have scored a few more.”
Opening up the play allowed Carleton to generate a fair amount of set plays off corners and free kicks, leading to a goal in the 31st minute.
Defender Quinn Snell got her head to a nice cross into the box off a corner kick and directed it into the right side of the goal, making it a 2-0 game.
The Ravens continued to push in the second half, doing a better job at finding gaps and engaging the wing-backs offensively to generate chances. It was a key part of the game plan going into the match.
“We identified that as something we wanted to do in the pregame [discussion],” Oliveri said. “I don’t think we did a good job of it in the first half but definitely in the second half we did a much better job of getting that wide back forward.”
Multiple forwards benefitted from the Ravens’ advancing wide backs as Lauren Illman drew a penalty kick off a wonderful through ball. However, Illman failed to convert the penalty shot, sending it over the bar.
Raquel Costa Correia shined brightly in the second half. The fourth-year midfielder scored twice toward the end of the half, giving Carleton added insurance.
The Ravens pushed until the very end and were able to close out the 4-0 victory in their home opener.
The win also marks the first Ravens home-opener victory since September 2018, a 1-0 victory against the Nipissing Lakers. Last year’s home opener saw a disappointing 5-0 defeat to the Queen’s University Gaels.
The Ravens will travel to Toronto, Ont., to take on the Toronto Metropolitan University Bold and the University of Toronto Varsity Blues on Sept. 24 and Sept. 25 respectively.
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
