BC shuts out Grambling State in a 5–0 win — The Heights

Just six minutes into Boston College’s women’s soccer game against Grambling State, Sydney Segalla charged toward Grambling State’s goal.

The straight line was wide open for Segalla, who slipped a centering pass through the defense and into the boot of Paige Peltier.

Peltier had only the goalkeeper in front of him and promptly buried the ball in the net.

It would take some time for the Eagles offense to hit its stride after the early goal, but the Eagles eventually scored four more goals.

With the 5–0 victory, Boston College (8–2–1, 0–1–1 Atlantic Coast) defeated Grambling State (2–6–3) in a game in which the Eagles offense dominated possession.

The Eagles spent most of the game applying pressure on offense, getting twenty-four shots to Grambling State’s three.

“Yeah, you know, I think we worked pretty hard all night,” BC head coach Chris Watkins said.

“I was proud of our effort. It’s not easy to bounce back game after game and our ladies did a good job of that today. I think it was mostly just – we were going to push on and I think we wore them down over time, but you’re happy we’ve scored five goals in any Division 1 game and so we’ll be happy with that tonight.”

Late in the first half, the Eagles earned the only penalty kick of the game after Aislin Streicek was tripped by Aubrey Salazar. Streicek’s drive was saved on a diving catch by Grambling goalie Madison Covey-Taylor.

The Eagles created offensive pressure with the number of corner kicks they won. BC hit the ball well on numerous attempts but were stifled by a crowded penalty box. BC finally scored off a right-footed corner kick by Ashley Roberts with thirteen minutes remaining. Roberts’ goal ended what was 0-for-15 on corner kick attempts.

“Yeah, we, you know, we were in the end line in the first half — we were in the end line 16 times for crosses and we were one for 16,” Watkins said. “You like to shoot one in seven, so that’s it. We’ve got some things to work on, a lot of things to work on, but tonight, everybody left the court healthy and I think we got a little bit better in third offense tonight, so we’ll take it as a good night.”

Grambling State’s best scoring chance came when Aria Whitney sent a cross to the left post in the 57th minute. The ball hit the post just before Alana Aiken got to it and it resulted in a shot by at the gate for BC.

“We have a goal of winning the ball back in our offensive half more than our defensive half,” Watkins said. “Today, that certainly happened. But against… you know, we’ve got top 10 teams coming in here pretty quickly. We have to be very careful defensively with our strikers, with our midfielders even when we lose the ball. And that was the focus of today before the game was to make sure we won the ball back in good places. They did a good job today and that created a short field and kept them away from our goal.”

BC was quick to counter Grambling State’s offensive drive with their own. Sydney Segalla and Ava Lung were able to converge on an Emily Sapienza pass in wide open space. Segalla gave way to Lung and followed Lung as he took the ball into the bottom left corner.

“We’ve already played some conference games. We have to be, we have to believe in ourselves a little bit more,” Watkins said. “You know, we were picked, you know, near the bottom of the conference, right? And so I think sometimes our girls think that’s who we are. And we’ve got to be a little more confident in the games, we’ve got to believe in ourselves a little bit more and that’s our job as coaches, to make sure they step on the pitch and know we can win.”

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