WMVO Good Times Great Oldies
GAMBIER, Ohio — The Kenyon College women’s soccer team, coming off a 6-0 win against Marietta College in its last outing, secured a second straight shutout on Mavec Field with a 4-0 win over the Fighting Muskies of Muskingum University.
The win adds to Kenyon’s stellar record this season, pushing the Owls to a 5-1-3 mark. The Owls have defended their home field thus far, going unbeaten, 3-0-2, in five games on Mavec.
The victory also marks the first time in head coach Kelly Bryan’s 21-year tenure that the team has won five games before a second loss, and the start is the program’s most wins before a second loss since opening the 1996 season with a 6-1-1 record. The team’s .722 winning percentage this year is their best nine-game start since 2011 when Bryan led Kenyon to a 7-2 (.778) record over nine games and eventually went 9-2 to start the season.
Kenyon kept Muskingum, who fell to 2-5-5, from getting anything going offensively. The Owls outshot the Fighting Muskies 33-0 with a whopping 20 shots on goal and posted a 12-1 edge in corner kicks. Kenyon set a highwater mark in shots for the second straight game after 26 in its previous outing, and the 20 shots on goal set a season-high by eight. The 33 shots are Kenyon’s most since 45 against Defiance College in 2015, and the 20 on-target shots are the program’s most since before 2009.
Talulla Sheridan sparked the Owls’ scoring, netting two goals, assisting on one, and setting game-highs with eight shots and six shots on goal. The goals and assist were the junior’s first points this season, and it was the first multi-goal game of her career.
After a few near misses, Kenyon’s pressure paid in the 17th minute when Sadie Gould assisted Sheridan to put the Owls up 1-0.
Later in the half, Kenyon flipped the field in a matter of seconds in the 34th minute as Morgan Baker and Jenna Michel needed just two passes to get the ball in front of Muskingum’s box. A Muskies’ defender was the first one to the ball and made a touch, but the ball didn’t have anything on it as it trickled to Julianna Granetzke, who planted and fired past the keeper to double the Owls’ advantage.
Sheridan netted her second goal early in the second half, scoring on a solo run in the 47th minute. The junior streaked down the left side of the field, beat the Muskies’ defense, and placed a left-footed shot over the leaping keeper to put Kenyon ahead by three scores.
The forward nearly secured the hat trick in the 64th minute after letting a ball rip following a great corner by Jamie Murphy, but the ball went towards Alex Sokolik as the senior scored to give Sheridan and Murphy the assists.
Even with the clock winding down and the benches emptied, Kenyon maintained the pressure and hardly let Muskingum cross midfield for the remainder of the game. Truly Martin took six shots, three on goal, in 16 minutes, joining Sheridan, Gould, Morgan Baker, and Jenna Michel as Owls who put multiple shots on target.
Ariel Kite did not need to do much more than watch from the box as her teammates kept the pressure on the Muskies half, but the first-year goalkeeper secured the first win and second shutout of her career.
The Owls will look to keep it rolling when they head to Fredericksburg, Virginia, to face the University of Mary Washington. The game, Kenyon’s final non-conference contest, is set to start at 1 p.m. on Saturday, September 30.
