Drew Wemple
The Women’s soccer team collected its first win of the season this past sunday Sept. 5 vs. Russell Sage College. The Lady Cardinals traveled to Albany, NY, and after a scoreless first half, sophomore midfielder, Avery Durgan, and senior forward, Emily Frodyma, each put one goal in the back of the net in the second half to defeat the gators, 2-0. After battling the night before against RPI, in Troy, NY, in a double-overtime game that ended in a 1-1 draw, SUNY Plattsburgh’s women’s soccer team was able to put together a solid enough showing to win.
“Going into[the game], we have two ties. We want the W,” Head Coach Tania Armellina said. “So I think you know kind of starting with that game and going in, it was like, ‘Okay can we correct some of the issues we had later in the RPI game, and come out Stronger.’”
And it looks like they did, securing the W.
“We were really trying to come out of the gates and control the tempo,” Armellino said.
But after neither Sage nor SUNY Plattsburgh scored in the first half, there was work to be done to guarantee the Lady Cardinals would leave the State’s capital with one win.
“I think for us it’s sometimes, unfortunately, kind of goes to half time, where there’s that talk of like, let’s look at this really what’s happening,” Armellino said. The team took that talk to heart, letting it fuel them for the second half.
“We always do a little huddle before each half starts. We kind of just like, looked at each other and we’re like, ‘Guys, we’ve tied two games , we need a goal right here we know that we can do it,” senior forward Emily Froydma said. “Lets just go out there and get a goal first 5-10.
They exceeded their goal, as sophomore forward Avery Durgam Scored at the 46 minute mark, assisted by Allison Seidman, a little over a minute after the start of the second half to put the Cardinals up 1-0.
“I didn’t start off as I hoped. But once we went into the second half, I knew I didn’t want to tie again, and that we needed to have a win under our belt so I just worked hard,” Durgan said, “I feel like I have a lot of motivators on the team that helped and encouraged me to push myself. So it felt really good after scoring a goal obviously. And I like that goal that helped us get the win.” Durgan, a returning sophomore, is getting her first real taste of collegiate women’s this season due to COVID-19. They played merely just one game last fall. So early on in this season, her and others in her position have had to make adjustments.
“I think it was kind of slap in the face because we didn’t know what to expect, ”Durgan said.” But it honestly was kind of nice too because there was a whole new group of girls that didn’t really get to experience it either, so we kind of all kind of came together and help weather other work.”
After Durgan put the first goal in, there was no sense of compliance or the desire to play it safe.
“We definitely wanted to keep attacking, I don’t think coach will ever tell us otherwise,” Durgan said.
Then at the 82 minute mark, Emily Froydman boxed out her defender in front of the goal, and chipped a well timed pass from Nora Fitzgerald into the back of the net.
“Before the play, I was definitely getting frustrated because I had a couple opportunities where I was wide open, and I just missed or the goalie saved the shot,” Forydma said.” So I was definitely frustrated with myself before, and then coach took me off the field and talked to me, saying, “Listen, your strong, you can do this, get in there and score a goal.’”
That goal from Froydma would turn out to be the clincher as Sage College failed to score through the 90 minutes of play. Froydma also was awarded by SUNYAC the PrestoSports Women’s Soccer Offensive Player of the week.
“It definitely meant a lot to me because I’ve never gotten something like that before. I went from being a sophomore and barley playing in some games to now. It definitely just showed all that hard work I’ve put in over the past couple years is paying off,” Froydma said about receiving the award.
Overall the Lady Cardinals stay unbeaten, at 1-0-2 through three games, but Coach Armellino isn’t done. She, and the rest of her team, are taking this season one game at a time, making sure to focus solely on their upcoming game.
“I don’t worry about next week. We worry about Union. We worry about being home, controlling that temp and building on everything we talked about in those first three games,” Armellino said. “You’re usually not rolling into your peak, you’ve got to hit it right. So that’s when we look at Union because we’re back home, it’s our game to control it’s where we train every day, and can we just continue to build on what we’ve already done.”
The next time the women’s soccer team returns to the pitch Saturday sept. 11 at 2p.m in Plattsburgh vs. Union College. With a trip to Middlebury College looming next Wednesday Sept. 15.
