The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s soccer team shutout cross-town foe Tennessee Temple 7-0 Friday night under the lights at Finley Stadium in the Mocs’ home opener.
Five different players scored for Chattanooga who had five goals in the first half.
Freshmen Amanda Ortiz (Arlington, Tenn.) and McKenzie Gregg (Newport, Tenn.) each netted two while UTC’s veterans scored the remaining three.
“It’s always nice for freshmen to jump in and get things done,” UTC head coach J.D. Kyzer said. “They’ve got that extra monkey on their back because they’re freshman. They haven’t been in that situation, they get pushed around a lot.”
Ortiz scored what would eventually become the game winning goal in the sixth minute on a pass up the middle from senior Crystal Mackezyk (Columbia, Tenn. It would be 25 minutes later before the Mocs would score again, but it wouldn’t take long to score three more for a 5-0 halftime lead.
In the 31st minute, Gregg, with a shot from the middle, put Chattanooga up 2-0 on a pass from junior Clare Latham (Cordova, Tenn.) from the right. The Mocs third goal came off a penalty kick by senior Melanie Arredondo (Tampico, Mexico) at the 38:55 mark following a Crusader foul in the box.
Gregg teamed up with Latham again in the half to make it 4-0 then the two pair up again in reverse with Latham taking a pass from Gregg and charging in to the goal and slotting a shot past the Tennessee Temple keeper to the far post to make it 5-0 at the 42:07 mark of the game.
In the second half, the Mocs added another pair of goals. Ortiz took a pass from sophomore Samantha Hogan (Gallatin, Tenn.) then went one-on-one with her defender to give UTC its sixth goal of the game. Chattanooga’s Mackezyk scored UTC’s final goal of the game in the 64th minute, assisted by junior Logan Higgins (Louisville, Ky.) .
“We had a rough start. We picked up our game in the second half,” Kyzer said. “We scored more goals in the first half, but we didn’t play the way were supposed to play until the second half.”
Chattanooga outshot the Crusaders 34-1 and UTC keeper Natalie Irwin (Nashville, Tenn.) earned her first win in net. Tennessee Temple keeper Lyndi Dodd pulled down 13 saves in the game.
“They are a much better team,” Kyzer said. “I think they are going to surprise some people this year.”
The Crusaders fall to 0-2 on the year and will welcome their new coach next week. Chattanooga improves to 2-1 and will host Gardner-Webb Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. Admission is FREE.