The University of Montana womens soccer team beat NIC 4-0 in a scrimmage at NIC on a cold and rainy April 27. Montana scored three of its four goals in the first half.
The two teams played 40-minute halves as opposed to the regular 45-minute halves teams play in the regular season.
“Playing bigger and better schools is just going to make us a bigger and better team,” NIC freshman midfielder Natalie Middleton said.
Middleton will be a sophomore in the fall when NIC will move from the NJCAA (National Junior College Athletic Association) to the NWAACC (Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges).
“Next season, I’m looking forward to getting some new freshman, making a better team, and working together more and just starting over, starting new,” she said.
Head coach Dan Hogan has been impressed with Middleton and freshman forward Meghan Pagano from Sandpoint.
“I think Natalie Middleton’s shown both in this game and in the Eastern (Washington University) game that she can hold her own in the midfield against any of the D-Is, either of those schools for sure,” Hogan said. “She’s just really, really tough in there, wins balls out of the air and tackles hard and distributes the ball pretty well.”
Hogan said Pagano is “willing to take players one-on-one and has quick feet.”
Hogan also said there are a couple areas in which his team can improve.
“We just got to communicate a little better defensively so when teams do something different that we’re not used to seeing that they can make the adjustments on the field,” Hogan said. “I can’t stop and call timeout like they can in basketball, so they’ve got to start learning to do that on their own. Then, the other thing that we’ve been working on some this spring tactically is trying to get our outside backs up and wide so we can use them more in the attack, and we did OK at times today, but just not often enough.”
Montana’s first goal was deflected in.
“The first goal was a deflection and Alex (Rodriguez) was going to where it was going to begin with and as wet as the field was, there was no way she could change directions and get back to it,” Hogan said. “So that was an unlucky one.”
Rodriguez dove to her right to stop a penalty kick attempt, preventing a 2-0 score. Montana eventually increased its lead to two goals after Rodriguez batted a shot straight up in the air and it fell into the goal.
“They had one pretty good goal and Alex made a great save on a PK (penalty kick) and I thought did really well,” Hogan said.
With NIC down 3-0, NIC sophomore midfielder Kellsi Parson nailed a shot off the crossbar and it bounced away.
“I thought we had a couple chances in the first half, created some things, which against a D-1 program, we get a couple chances each half, I’m pretty happy with that,” Hogan said.
