HCC Sports Information
Sophomore Ashley Main made three critical saves and helped the Hutchinson Community College women's soccer team to a season-opening 3-0 victory over Northeast Nebraska on Friday at the Salthawk Sports Complex.
Hutchinson (1-0) won its second-straight and 10 of the last 11 season openers.
The Blue Dragons scored three unassisted goals in the second half to finally break away from Northeast (1-1), which out-played the Blue Dragons for much of the first half.
Main earned her first career shutout with a career-high five saves on Friday.
The Blue Dragon keeper made a strong first-half save on a direct free kick and then made a key save after a bad defensive zone giveaway to help Hutchinson maintain a scoreless tie in the first half. Then with Hutch leading 2-0 in the second half, Main scrambled on the ground in front of the goal trying to get to a loose ball with several Hawks players trying to attempt a shot in the 58th minute. From the ground, Main got a hand on the ball to push it out of danger and maintain the shutout.
Hutch wasn't able to generate much offense in the first half with only three shots on goal against Hawks' keeper Ashley Wemhoff, who made several huge stops in a nine-save performance.
The Blue Dragons finally broke through early in the second half.
Freshman Brailey Moeder intercepted a keeper punt and drove to the goal. She made a spin move around the defender and beat Wemhoff to her right for the game's first goal 2:23 into the second half.
Abound 2 1/2 minutes later, sophomore Sheena Nichol made a nice play into the box. After Wemhoff made two great saves, she couldn't stop the third as freshman Megan Maslak scored to make it 2-0 with 40:04 to play in the match.
Nichol made it 3-0 when she used perfect touch to bend a direct free kick into the upper left corner of the goal with 4:42 to play in the second half.
The Blue Dragons out-shot Northeast 26-10 for the match, including 16-4 in the second half.
Hutchinson will play host to Trinidad State at 1 p.m. on Sunday at the Salthawk Sports Complex. Northeast and Trinidad will play each other at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
MATCH NOTES – The Blue Dragons are now 10-3 overall in season openers and 11-2 in home openers. … Main is now 6-0 in her career in net for the Dragons. … Entering the season already No. 10 in the career goals list, Sheena Nichol scored her 28th career goal on Friday. … Hutchinson and Northeast met for the first time in program history. … The Blue Dragons posted their 128th all-time shutout in program history.