Most teams, players, coaches, and anyone who speaks on behalf of a sports program usually tries to downplay a rivalry game in an effort to keep the emotions from getting out of their control. The Creighton women’s soccer team steered far from that approach in the days leading up to their Friday night match with the UNO Mavericks. They even used some social media back and forth during the week to give them a little something extra to play for in the annual battle for bragging rights in the city of Omaha.
“It means a lot,” Creighton junior forward Lauren Sullivan said of the rivalry between the schools. “You always have that hometown sort of Omaha vs Omaha, and we had heard before the game that they were saying they are Omaha’s team, so that kind of put a little fuel to the fire. We saw some posts on Instagram, so we were talking in our group meeting that we really wanted to take it at them.”
Lauren Sullivan
Sullivan and the Bluejays (4-1-0) did exactly that. Dominating their cross-town rivals, 4-0, in front of 1,058 fans at Morrison Stadium. Freshman goalkeeper Erin Scott made four saves to extend her scoreless streak at home to 351 minutes and 27 seconds, lowering her goals against average to 0.41 to begin her career, and becoming the first Creighton player to post a clean sheet against the Mavericks (1-2-0) since Maggie Phelan did so back on September 1, 1999 when Scott was just two years old.
“She’s very clean on, I wouldn’t call them simple saves, but she makes them look easier than they are just because she has very good technique,” Creighton head coach Ross Paule said of his young shot stopper after watching her record her third shutout in five games. “She knows when to come out. I’m impressed with her confidence, and she should build on that confidence to have that many shutouts as a freshman. It’s great.”
Scott’s night would not prove to be a challenging one, especially after watching her team spend most of the match on UNO’s side of the field. The Bluejays gave the freshman goalkeeper a quick lead in the 10th minute when Sullivan drilled the crossbar from around 30 yards out and sophomore midfielder Darby Hugunin controlled the rebound and chipped it past Nebraska-Omaha junior goalkeeper Haley Shelton.
“I know ‘Sully’ has a great shot,” Hugunin said. “When she has the ball on her right foot from distance I know she is going to get it on frame, so I just tried to make sure that I was there in case it went off the crossbar or if there was a rebound. There was a rebound and I just got it and put it in the back of the net.”
Aside from maybe Hugunin herself, there might not have been anyone happier to see the redshirt sophomore score a goal than Sullivan, even when it came on a ball she was trying to score on. Hugunin missed the entire 2014 season with a Jones fracture in her foot, so Sullivan couldn’t help but feel excited after seeing her teammate record her first goal in a little more than two years.
“I was just elated,” Sullivan said. “First off, it bounced off the crossbar on my shot, so I was saying, ‘please, someone, do something with that’, but Darby has been put through the ringer with injuries and not getting as much of a look freshman year as she maybe should have, but I was so proud of her. All she’s overcome and now really succeeding, it’s awesome.”
Hugunin was in the mix on Creighton’s second goal when she was tripped up on a run in the box in the 29th minute. Junior center back Ylenia Sachau lined to take the penalty kick as she always does, and she fired into the back of the net to give Creighton a 2-0 lead.
See Adam Streur’s Photo Gallery from the match here
The most dangerous lead in soccer is said to be that two-goal advantage, so the Bluejays made sure it go bigger. Senior left back Jill Richgels sent a corner kick off the hands of Shelton and into the net with nine seconds remaining in the opening half. A crowd in front of the goal made it difficult to see exactly how the ball found it’s way in. The goal was credited to freshman right back Emma Braasch, but the team’s celebrator reaction was directed at Richgels.
Bluejays celebrate
Either way, the Bluejays took a commanding three-goal lead into the locker room before Sullivan quickly turned it into a four-goal edge with a strike just under the crossbar this time in the 52nd minute to cap off Creighton’s sixth win over the Mavericks in seven meetings all-time between the schools.
“It feels really good just having the inner-city rivalry and kind of showing who is Omaha’s team,” Hugunin said. “It just feels really good and we’re just going to keep building on it going forward.”
The Bluejays finished with a 20-8 edge in shots, an 8-3 advantage in corner kicks, and put 11 shots on frame compared to just four for the Mavericks.
“It was a very good day,” Paule said. “One, it’s a big game because we have a great event going on and playing a local team in the area it’s always an intense game, usually it has a lot of energy. We knew it was going to be like that. We were just focused on what we were going to do and that’s grow from every game that we’ve had, learn from what we’ve done in the past. To put up another shutout is huge. I think our defensive team shape was very good and from that we had some great movement off the ball from our forwards, and scored four good goals. We were unlucky we didn’t get more.”
Creighton’s first-year head coach didn’t dismiss the pregame banter between the two squads either, noting that the extra buzz it adds to the match is a good thing.
“Honestly, I think it’s good. I think it’s a good thing. I think it brings everybody into the game,” Paule said. “It shows the personality of the players, the coaches, and the organization, it’s a good thing. You just have to keep your emotions in check. You can use them in a bad way or a good way, and we did that. We knew we had to step out there and take care of how we play and be organized, and not get out of whack from emotion.”
Keeping their emotions under control allowed Creighton to win their third consecutive match and improve to 4-0-0 at home on the season where they have outscored their opponents 10-1 so far, the only goal coming late in the match against Northern Illinois on August 28 when the Bluejays already had a 4-0 lead.
“One of our major goals of the year is to take care of what we do here at home, and to not give away any easy goals. If somebody is going to get a goal they are going to have to earn it,” Paule said. “I think we’ve done a good job of that. We’re getting better. We’re still not where we need to be, but as long as we’re getting better at what we’re asking of them.
“Winning at home, you can make it a habit. That is something that’s a mentality. We’re going to take that into every game.”
Alyssa Jara
Creighton’s next match will come on Sunday at 3:00 p.m. at Morrison Stadium against the South Dakota State (2-2-0). The Jackrabbits fell, 3-1, on Friday night at Missouri-Kansas City, the same team and the same place where the Bluejays suffered their only setback of the season.
Creighton is 9-0-1 all-time against South Dakota State, most recently posting a 3-2 road win to open the season last year.