KEENE, N.H. 8/30/08 - Senior midfielder Michelle Boland (Worcester, Mass.) had two goals to lead the Keene State women's soccer team to a season-opening 6-0 shutout victory over Norwich University at Owl Athletic Complex on Saturday. It was the first ever meeting between the two teams. 

                Boland scored the first two goals of the game in the first half. Keene State scored the first goal on its first shot on net.   Boland took a rebound off of Cadet Goalie Alicia Wright (Restive, N.Y.) and put the ball into the open net at the 14:21 mark.

                Later in the half, freshman forward Sia Karamourtopoulos (Freemont, N.H.) broke in along, but her shot went wide of the left post.  Boland scored her second of the half at the 26:36 mark when her shot from 26-yards out went over the out-stretched arms of Wright.

                "We have a real good offensive-minded team this year, a couple good freshmen contributing to the offense, so we should score a lot of goals this year," said Boland.

                Norwich's first shot on goal came minutes into the first half when sophomore forward Nikki Szczepanski (Auburn, N.Y) hit the cross bar.

                Sophomore forward Nora Mahoney (Belchertown, Mass.) gave KSC a 3-0 lead two minutes into the second half when she dribbled the ball past Cadet goalie Nicki Hunsicker (Emmaus, Pa.) who entered the game to start the second half.

                Karamourtopoulos sent in sophomore forward Katie Bradford (Lebanon, N.H.) to make it a 4-0 game six minutes into the second half.

                Sophomore Jana Berthiaume (Worcester, Mass.) and freshman Britni Watkinson (Rochester, N.H.) netted unassisted goals to complete the scoring.

              "It was a great start," said KSC Coach Denise Lyons.  "We tried a lot of different combinations today and a lot of them really worked.  I'm really happy the way everyone came in and made a contribution."

              Junior goalies Samantha Hirsh (Holliston, Mass.) and freshman Megan Dempsey (Weymouth, Mass.) combined on the shutout for the Owls (1-0).  Dempsey made one save.   Wright (3 saves), Hunsicker (1 save) and Meghan Kennedy (Lowell, Mass.) all saw action in goal for the Cadets (0-1). 

            Both teams return to action on Wednesday in 4 p.m. non-conference games, Keene State is at Western New England and Norwich returns home to face Castleton State.