WINONA, Minn. — In their first two games, the Saint Mary's University women's soccer team scored six goals — four of which came off the foot of junior
Amy Sibik (Onalaska, Wis.).
Tuesday afternoon, Crown College did its best to shut down the Cardinals' speedy forward, limiting her to a late, second-half goal.
It didn't matter — Sibik had more than enough offensive support.
Dana Winkler (Lake Geneva, Wis.) had a goal and two assists and the Cardinals ran their season-opening winning streak to three straight, rolling to a 4-0 nonconference victory over Crown at Ochrymowycz Field.
“This was another good win,” said SMU coach Eric Zimmerman. “I thought we dominated the game from start to finish. Offensively, it was nice to see some other players step up and give us some offensive punch — Dana Winkler was a force out there today.
“And defensively, we never gave (Crown) a chance to get into any offensive rhythm, we just bottled them up the entire game.”
Bottled them up? That's an understatement.
SMU held the visiting Storm to just one shot on goal — and goalkeeper Mariana Sanchez (Puebla, Mexico) made the easy second-half save to record her first shutout of the season.
Crown goalkeeper Sarah Rushfeldt, meanwhile, was much more busy between the pipes at the other end, as SMU peppered the freshman keeper with 10 shots — including first-half goals by Caitlyn Cole (Winneconne, Wis.) and Keirra Metcalfe (Pickering, Ontario), and second-half tallies by Winkler and Sibik.
“We've been playing some very good soccer to start the season,” said Zimmerman, whose team returns to action Sunday, traveling to Superior, Wis., for a 4 p.m. nonconference contest against UW-Superior. “Hopefully we've been able to build a little confidence and can carry that over into the rest of the season.
“Every game from here on out is going to be that much tougher than the one before, so we are going to have to make sure to bring our A game to the field every day.”
