Transfers Ariana Mondiri and Azumi Manriki scored their first goals in a Creighton uniform, while senior forward Jenny Grissom added her second in the last three matches to help the Creighton women’s soccer team improve to 2-0-3 on the season behind a dominant 4-1 win over North Dakota at Morrison Stadium on Thursday night.
The win by Ross Paule’s crew marks just the fourth time in program history that the Bluejays have kept an “0” in the loss column through the first five matches. His team produced a 32-3 edge in shots and tied a stadium-record with 14 corner kicks, but the only number he cared about at the end of the night was four.
“It feels good to score goals, it felt great to get a fast goal,” Paule said. “That’s what we want to do. We want to start a game like that, get a goal, get on top. We created plenty of chances to score more goals. You walk away from games like this happy you scored … overall we’ve been working on getting the chances and putting in four of them is a good thing, but I think we’ll look back at it thinking we left more out there. The team felt like they could have scored and should have scored more, but overall, we are happy with most of the performance.”
After battling Iowa State to a 0-0 draw at home last Sunday, the Jays didn’t waste very much time putting the Fighting Hawks in a hole on Thursday night.
Seventy seconds into the match, Manriki lofted a ball into the box. Grissom settled it at her feet, shielded off a couple defenders, and placed it into the right side of the net for a 1-0 lead. It was second-fastest goal ever scored by a Creighton player, behind only Franny Hylok, who scored in 35 seconds back on October 18, 2002 against Drury.
In the 20th minute, Mondiri made it 2-0 Bluejays. The play started with junior midfielder Abigail Santana running free down the middle of the pitch with the ball at her feet. She split North Dakota’s center backs with a through ball and Mondiri, a transfer from NAIA Northwestern Ohio, slid to it in the box to flick it inside the left post for her first goal as a Bluejay.
“That was a great pass by Santana,” the Creighton newcomer said. “She made the job really easy for me. I just knew I needed to touch the ball first.”
Creighton gave one back when UND redshirt senior forward Hannah Olson chipped one over Creighton goalkeeper Keelan Terrell to trim the lead in half with 12:33 left before halftime, but rookie midfielder Azumi Manriki pushed the advantage to 3-1 with a well-struck ball into the upper right corner of the net from 20 yards out.
Manriki’s goal was a big deal for the Jays for a few reasons:
- One, it obviously swung the momentum back on their side before halftime.
- Two, it no doubt provides a jolt of confidence for Manriki, a sophomore transfer from Limestone University by way of Hiroshima, Japan.
- Three, the assist on the play came from senior midfielder Aida Kardovic, who checked into the match two minutes and seven seconds before finding Manriki unmarked just outside the box. Kardovic, a two-time All-Big East First Team performer, was making her season debut after battling an injury all throughout the fall camp that caused her to miss the first four matches of the regular season.
“[Aida] is a footballer,” Paule said. “She has a good vision of the game, good technique, and puts herself in good spots. She’s one of those players who makes everyone around her better. Those are the players that you want in the middle of the pitch as your 10 or your six or your eight.
“We’re going to have to hold her back. She would say that could play many more minutes, but we are just going to make sure we’re smart about it — listen to the science behind it and really build her back up to full strength. We’re going to add to what we continue to do each day as long as she continues to feel well.”
Mondiri added the final layer of icing on the cake in the 63rd minute when she tracked down a header by Grissom and slotted the ball past North Dakota goalkeeper Madi Livingston for her second goal of the night.
Between them, Mondiri and Grissom have accounted for four of the six goals Creighton has scored over the last three matches. While the Jays are still working to be sharper and more clinical with their finishes, it’s an encouraging sign anytime two of your top line players have moments like that fresh in their minds.
“You want your goal scorers to score,” Paule said. “The longer they go without scoring, then sometimes it gets in their heads. You want them to get on a roll and feel like they are going to score at any moment. Anytime you get a goal or two you get confidence. You don’t just want to create chances and not get the goal … I feel like they are both going to be hungry to get goals each game now.”
Creighton returns to action on Sunday, September 4th for the fourth leg of their five-match home stand. The Bluejays host Tulsa (3-1-1) in a 1:00 p.m. match at Morrison Stadium. Last season, the Golden Hurricane scored with 3:20 left in the second half to beat CU 1-0 at home.
