The Vanderbilt Commodores, in the midst of their best start to a season since 2008, continued that trend Wednesday with a 19-7 victory over the New Hampshire Wildcats.
“I really think that the senior leadership is setting the standard [for the great start to the season],” said Coach Beth Hewitt. “Everyone is buying in, working hard, and just kind of going one game at a time.”
The game was dominated by Junior Emily Mathewson who scored three goals and recorded four assists for the Commodores.
“She [Mathewson] is just doing it all right now,” said Hewitt. “She’s a very hard worker and she takes her game very seriously. She did a lot of film this week just trying to make small tweaks in her game and I think it really paid off.”
Coming off their first loss of the season, a heartbreaker to San Diego State in double overtime on the road, the Commodores looked a little sluggish out of the gates. They allowed New Hampshire to use their speed to control the first few minutes of the game and score first. That goal seemed to snap Vanderbilt back to life, however, as they responded by scoring four consecutive goals in just over a minute of game time.
“We wanted to think about it but also not think about it,” Mathewson said of the San Diego State loss. “A lot of us left feeling really mad and really frustrated and the best way to handle it was to take it out on New Hampshire and that’s what we did today.”
The Commodores quickly tacked on two more goals scored by Maddie Souza and Sophie Furlong, but the Wildcats refused to go away. They battled back with two goals of their own to bring the score to 6-3.
Vanderbilt responded again, scoring six more goals by halftime to extend their lead to 12-4.
The Commodores carried their momentum into the second half where they scored seven more goals and ultimately won the game 19-7.
The team, which ranks third in the nation in assists with 9.5 per game, finished the game with fourteen of them.
“We’re a very selfless offense,” said Mathewson. “It’s almost more fun to assist, I think, then to score the goal. I think we do focus on just helping each other out and we play for each other.”
The Commodores play again on Saturday, March 16 when they host Winthrop at 1 pm.
