Women's Soccer Breezes by Alabama A&M in Exhibition

Rachel Schmidt

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- The Belmont women's soccer team concluded the exhibition portion of its 2012 schedule with a convincing win on the road on Sunday afternoon.  The Bruins easily defeated Alabama A&M, 7-0, in the first meeting between the programs since 2009.

The Bruins opened the contest aggressively and began putting up shots in the first 15 minutes of regulation.  Freshman Emily Proud (Knoxville, Tenn.) notched Belmont's first goal of the day off a rebound by sophomore Rachel Schmidt (Dallas, Texas) with 17:47 on the clock.  Despite tallying nine shots in the first stanza, BU was only able to find the back of the net once.

In the second half, Belmont maintained its level of aggressiveness.  This time netting its next goal in just the first three minutes was senior Lauren Paynter (Danville, Ky.).  BU kept attacking the net over the next 10 minutes and freshman Sydney Scheben (Union, Ky.) beat the Lady Bulldog keeper to notch her first preseason goal at the 58:33 mark.  Senior Spencer Laufer (Houston, Texas) repeated the feat less than 15 seconds later to put BU up, 3-0.  

The Bruins used their same tactic of constant fresh legs to keep Alabama A&M searching for an answer.  In the 70th minute, Belmont collected two more goals, this time courtesy of freshman Rachel Dill (Carmel, Ind.) and Schimdt.  Three minutes later, Schmidt would net what would become BU's seventh and final goal of the day.  The Bruins unleashed a flurry of shots at the AAMU net in the final five minutes of regulation but was unable to net one more additional goal.

Belmont tallied four corner kicks during the contest.

Freshman Lindsey Espe (LaCanada, Calif.) and junior Nicole Berner (Randolph, N.J.)  split time between the posts and finished with one save on the afternoon.

Belmont returns to action on August 19 with its first regular season contest on the road at Toledo.  Match time is set for Noon.