The Kentucky Wildcats women’s soccer team opened their season opener in style yesterday against Coastal Carolina. In her first game as a Wildcat, Kelsey Hunyadi, a transfer from Louisville, scored 2 goals to lead the way to a 4-0 victory. The 4 scores were the most the Wildcats have netted since 2008 as coach Jon Lipsitz has a great start to his second season.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
“We’ve known (Kelsey) is a special player,” coach Lipsitz said. “Part of that is we’ve had a relationship for 13 years, where we trust each other and that’s very important. On top of that, she’s just a special, talented player. I think a lot of times when people are that talented, they don’t credited for their hard work. (People say) `Oh she’s so talented’ and we assume it’s natural. She’s worked hard, and she’s earned the opportunity to be in those positions and tonight she finished and obviously we hope that continues.
“Our ability to possess the ball means that we’re going to get opportunities,” said Lipsitz. “I thought one of the things Coastal did an amazing job at was making us go backward and you could hear their coaches saying `Make them go negative, make them go negative.’ What I pushed the team to do at halftime was `Don’t take what they give you; of course they want to make you go backwards, and it’s easy to keep possession when you go backwards, but we need to find feet going forwards and we need to be a little crisper in our movement up top.’ I thought we played much better in the second half and found feet.
“We have worked really hard for two weeks in preseason and we haven’t tapered for anything,” said Lipsitz. “We didn’t taper from our scrimmage last week; we certainly didn’t taper for this. The reason was, we felt like we could play a lot of players and work through our fitness and I’m really proud of the fact we played 22 players tonight. First and foremost this was a testament to how hard everyone has worked. We obviously had some players stand out and score some great goals but everyone has worked hard and everyone deserved to play.”
Notes from [URL=”http://www.ukathletics.com/sports/w-soccer/recaps/082110aaa.html”]ukathletics.com[/URL]:
• The four goals for UK were the most tallied by the Wildcats since beating Cleveland State 4-0 in the 2008 season.
• It was also the most but UK in its season opener since recording six against Davidson in the 2003 lid lifter.
• Hunyadi’s two goals were the most by a Wildcat in a season opener since Elizabeth Ramsey netted a pair in the 2003 opener.
• It was also the first multi-goal game for a UK player since Laura Novikoff scored two against Oakland early in the 2008 season.
• Kentucky recorded 17 shots tonight. The Wildcats managed just 16 in its first three matches last year. UK’s 17 shots were the most since taking 31 against Mississippi State in the 2008 season.
• UK goalie Sydney Hiance was not credited for the shutout; however she did lower her career goals against average (GAA) to 1.25, moving her to fourth on UK’s all-time GAA list. Carrie Kuhnell (1995-98) ranks third at 1.16.
