Dragon slayers
JMU’s women’s soccer coach gets his 200th win
By Whitney Proffitt, contributing writer
Posted on October 2, 2006

The JMU women’s soccer team picked up its first Colonial Athletic Association win of the season Friday night at JMU Soccer Complex with a 5-1 victory over Drexel University.

“We all played well tonight,” JMU sophomore midfielder Kimmy Germain said. “The score showed our effort and just how well we did.”

Madison has played inconsistently to start the season and knew going into the game it needed to make a statement.

“This was the best 90 minutes we’ve put together in a long time,” JMU coach Dave Lombardo said. “They knew we needed two wins this weekend and they were revved up to play tonight.”

Madison took an early 1-0 lead at the 39:09 mark when senior forward Sarah Cebulski scored from 8 yards out off an assist by sophomore midfielder Lindsay Bowers.

“The early goal really changed the complexion of the game,” Lombardo said. “Lindsay Bowers was instrumental in causing the turn over that got the ball to Sarah Cebulski.”

Freshman forward Corky Julien rocketed an unassisted shot from 16 yards and scored the second goal of the game on what would become the game-winning goal at 19:55.

With under two minutes to play in the first half, fellow freshman Jess Remmes took a shot. The attempt was denied by Drexel junior goalkeeper Kate Hartman. However, JMU senior Natalie Ewell gathered the rebound and took advantage of positioning slipping a shot by Hartman.

“The big thing about tonight was teamwork,” junior Annie Lowry said.

Madison led 3-0 going into halftime and was outshooting Drexel 15-2.

After the half and with 11:44 remaining, Lowry received a pass from sophomore midfielder Kimmy Germain and scored on a 7-yard shot.

Drexel responded in a final offensive effort. Drexel freshman forward Martha Lutz took a 4-yard shot off an assist from fellow freshman Heatherrae Steadman to score the only goal for the Dragons.

The Dukes were quick to answer.

The combination of Lowry and Germain worked to score the final goal of the night. This time Germain took the assist from Lowry to boost JMU’s lead to 5-1.

“Our team chemistry is high right now,” Lowry said. “I think we’re playing very well.”

JMU had a total of 20 shots in the game compared to Drexel’s eight.

“We finally got everything together and showed that we can score more than one goal and beat a team heavily,” Lowry said.

Freshman goalie Diane Wszalek and redshirt freshman Missy Reimert combined for a total of six saves for the Dukes.

“This definitely gave us a lot of momentum,” Germain said. “We needed a huge win and we came up big tonight.”

The win was Lombardo’s 200th as the Dukes’ head coach. This is Lombardo’s 17th year at Madison and he has a 200-131-22 record with the team.