Bison Women’s Soccer had a big win this past week against the Lehigh Mountain Hawks thanks to first-year forward Riley Hayes’ first collegiate career goal.
In the 72nd minute, Hayes was substituted into the game to score the winning goal that would ultimately make the score 2-1, Bison. With this final win in the regular season, the Bison have a record of 11-3-4 overall and 5-1-3 in conference play. With this win, they also secured the No. 2 seed and an automatic entry into the semifinals of the Patriot League Tournament.
The Bison had an unlucky start to the game when Lehigh got onto the scoreboard with a one-point lead at the start of the second half. Thankfully, forward Henna Andican ’26 along with Hayes quickly saved the Bison from a devastating loss after both rebounding off of shots taken by Teresa Deda ’25.
Throughout the first half of the game against Lehigh, neither team had noteworthy offensive play, aside from an attempted shot by Deda that ultimately hit the underside of the crossbar and never found its way into the goal. The beginning of the second half saw a lot more action after goalie Jenna Hall ’24 made a brief save off of a corner kick. It wasn’t long after this that a Mountain Hawk player was able to score off the rebound with a header inside of the right post of the goal.
Andican and the rest of the Bison only needed five minutes to get themselves on the scoreboard after Deda sent an assist that she was able to tap into the goal. Although the Mountain Hawks’ goalie was able to stop two of junior Paige Temple’s goal attempts, the Bison were still able to put themselves on top. Once again, Deda took a shot on goal. After trying to score off her own rebound, it was Hayes who was able to put the shot away.
In the final 10 minutes of the game, both teams saw a lot of action and some close shots, but Hall was able to save and maintain their win over Lehigh with seven total saves that night. The Bison not only left the game with a win but also a 15-11 shot advantage, seven of which were Deda’s. She currently holds the league-high of assists with nine and is only six shy of holding the league-high record with 29 assists.
Coming into the game, the Mountain Hawks had a record of 7-5-4, 4-4-1 and three straight wins. With a win or tie game, the Mountain Hawks could have advanced to third or fourth place, however, after their loss against the Bison, they will now be the No. 5 seed and play No. 4 Boston University Sunday for the quarterfinal game. Going into the post-season, the Bison Women’s Soccer team is two-time defending Patriot League champions, the No. 2 seed for the second consecutive year and will now host most of the remaining seeds during the semifinal round of the Patriot League Championship on Thursday at our home stadium.
