Originally published October 4, 2021.

To say the women’s soccer team at ODU have gotten off to a good start would be an understatement. Quite frankly, it would be disrespectful to the club who have come out absolutely scorching to start the season. The team was able to continue their win streak against Marshall in a game where they dominated from start to finish, ending in an ODU victory 4-0. This extended the clubs win streak overall to six games and was their fourth straight conference victory.

The fun started early for Old Dominion, as Megan Watts scored the first goal in only the fourth minute of the game. Emily Roberts followed up with a header in minute 25, building the lead for the Monarchs which held heading into halftime up 2-0.

During minute 76, ODU prospered when Yulia Khrystiuk was able to cash in another score for the Monarchs. Yulia was arguably the star of the game, despite being on the field for only 43 minutes. This was tied for the lowest amount of playing time for any Old Dominion starter. She made good use of her minutes however, putting up two shot attempts and finding the back of the net with one. Khrystiuk also flashed her ability to set up teammates, recording an assist in the match as well.

If Marshall thought that Old Dominion would show any bit of mercy with a 3-0 lead late in the second half, they were terribly mistaken. Emily Garrick added insult to injury, putting in a late goal in minute 86. On top of that, the Monarchs were having some fun in the final minutes, attempting to add on another score. Smiles were showing while Marshall defenders did all in their power to prevent ODU from running up the score. They were able to do so, as the score remained 4-0 at the time of the final whistle. This ignored the celebration for the team and fans in the crowd were wild over the good turnout for the Friday night game. The team joined together at center field in a team huddle where it was clear that they were congratulating each other on an all around dominant performance.

For further intel on how much ODU dominated this match, they held possession of the ball for 59 percent of the entire game. They also put up 19 shots in total compared to Marshall’s two shot attempts. Of the two shots, Marshall was able to get off. Only one was on target which was saved by ODU’s goalkeeper, Kasey Perry. ODU also had six corner opportunities while Marshall had zero. ODU has been on a roll lately, but one could easily make the case that this is their most impressive win during the current streak.

After the game, ODU Coach Angie Hind reflected on the game, saying how she felt about the performance of her team. “We feel pretty good. We’ve been playing quite well, we haven’t been able to put a full 90 together that we would be really happy about. I think tonight was kind of close to that.”

Coach Hind was also asked about the offensive performance from the team and how good it is to be able to rely on scoring from different places. “For a lot of teams, they lean on one or two players to score the goals and for us we’re never like that. We want to make sure we can find goals from a lot of different sources.” They sure did accomplish that task, having all four of their goals scored by different players.

The Monarchs won’t have a lot of time to relax however, as their next game is on Sunday when they travel to East Carolina University to take on the Pirates. The Pirates have an overall record of 4-7-1 on the year compared to Old Dominion’s 8-2 overall record.

This doesn’t show any indication that the Monarchs will take them lightly. Coach Hind pointed out they have an extra day of rest, as the Pirate’s last game was a day prior to theirs. This could be a potential advantage. “It’s a real quick turnaround. ECU played Thursday night, we played tonight so they have one more day of recovery. We’ll try and recover our squad, get us ready quickly to head down there tomorrow and hopefully we can get something from that game too.”

ODU will look to make it seven straight wins when they travel to ECU. Kickoff will be Sunday at 4 p.m. EST.