Broncs stop skid; experience scoring wave
By Kadie Digiuseppe
THE Broncs rolled into town with two wins, a stark contrast following their back-to-back road losses. Rider outscored Merrimack 5-1 on Sept. 29 and Lock Haven 2-0 on Oct. 1 to start their stretch of home games.
Rider takes on Merrimack
On a cold Friday afternoon in Massachusetts, the Broncs gave the Warriors a run for their money in Rider’s highest-scoring game of the 2023 season.
The first quarter was back and forth, leaving both teams to have only one shot on goal in the period.
Things started clicking for the Rider’s offense in the second quarter when freshman forward Emma Bonshak scored halfway through, making her first goal as a Bronc.
Minutes later, Merrimack bounced back and scored their only goal of the game, tying it at 1-1.
Rider freshman forward and midfielder Willemijn Ephraim responded, scoring her third goal of the season making the score 2-1 at halftime.
The Broncs’ offense was electric the rest of the game, racking up three more goals by graduate student forward Carli Ciocco, freshman forward and midfielder Liv Cox and even a goal off a penalty stroke by sophomore forward Valeria Perales.
Rider closed the game with 20 total shots and nine offensive corners.
Broncs take down Lock Haven
Coming off of the explosive road win, the Broncs played at home for the first time since their Alumni game on Sept. 10 and gave the fans in attendance just what they wanted.
The intensity was high the entire game, especially during the first half after both teams attempted shot after shot, but nothing got past the defenses.
Rider opened the third quarter with a bang when freshman midfielder Ang Borisow scored the first goal of the game off a corner, making it her second goal of the season.
The evenly matched game had many intense corners for both the Broncs and the Bald Eagles, ending the game with 20 corners from both teams combined.
Junior forward Lyric Scott said, “We took this past week to focus on our corners and we felt really prepared. We took it seriously all week and I think that showed on the field today.”
Rider scored both their goals off of offensive corners, including Scott’s goal with three minutes left in the game and were locked down on defensive corners all day, or as Perales would put it, the defense “defended hard” on all their corners.
“We always want to defend our home field and we have a lot of supporters that come out and watch us play,” said Burisow about the home-turf win. “We just wanted to execute and score more goals.”
The Broncs are 4-6 on the season so far, facing Saint Francis at home on Oct. 6 at 4 p.m. The game will be streamed on ESPN+.
