Stonehill Blanks American International, 3-0

Skyhawks open NE-10 schedule with win; Hickey posts three saves

Boxscore 

EASTON, Mass. (September 5, 2009) - Stonehill College opened its Northeast-10 Conference schedule with a 3-0 victory over American International College in women's soccer action at Skyhawk Field today.

Stonehill got three first half goals from three different players in posting its third-straight win to open the season. Juniors Kirstie St. Martin (Providence, R.I./Mount Saint Charles Academy) and Michelle Norton (Abington, Mass./Cardinal Spellman), along with sophomore Alexandra Murphy (Weymouth, Mass./Weymouth) netted goals for the Skyhawks.

Sophomore goalkeeper Sarah Hickey (Lee, Mass./Lee) made three second half saves to preserve Stonehill's first shutout of the season (the second of her career). Senior Kara Potts (Westfield, Mass./Westfield) finished with four stops for American International as the Skyhawks finished with a 14-12 advantage in shots for the match. 

Sophomore Sarah Hickey made three second half saves to preserve the shutout.

Stonehill earned the early advantage, netting a pair of goals in the opening ten minutes of the match, and never looked back. Murphy opened the scoring with her first goal of the season just 4:40 into the contest as she took a pass from junior Julia Swierzoski (Albany, N.Y./Albany) and fired a shot into the lower left hand side of the goal. St. Martin doubled the Skyhawks lead just over five minutes later when she settled a cross from the left side by junior Caitlin McEvily (New Rochelle, N.Y./The Ursuline School) and fired in her sixth goal of the season at 9:42.

Stonehill took a three goal lead into the intermission when Norton converted a penalty kick with just 36-seconds left in the half when a Skyhawk player was tripped up inside the 18 after Potts made the initial save on a shot by St. Martin on the right side of the area. Hickey did the rest with three saves over the final 45-minutes to preserve the clean sheet and victory.

Stonehill (3-0-0, 1-0-0 NE-10) is back in action on Wednesday when it hosts the University of Massachusetts Lowell at 4 p.m. American International (2-2-0, 0-2-0 NE-10) visits the New York Institute of Technology on Tuesday for a non-conference match at 4:30 p.m.