GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. – Four seems to be the lucky number for this year's CMU women's soccer team, as the Mavericks saw one player put four goals in the net for the second straight game.
After Lila Dere scored four Friday against Nebraska-Kearney, today's star of the show was Evelyn Hammer. The redshirt sophomore forward scored in the fifth, ninth, 20th and 58th minutes while Dere added another goal to complete a 5-0 rout of Cal State Dominguez Hills at Community Hospital Unity Field Sunday.
From the start of the CMU women's soccer program in 1996, no Maverick had ever scored four goals in a game until Dere did it last October against Regis. Now, thanks to Dere and Hammer, the second and third four-goal games in program history have happened two days apart.
Hammer, a transfer who previously played both soccer and lacrosse at the University of Bridgeport, now has nine points in 75 minutes as a Maverick. After missing the first two games of the season, Hammer made her CMU debut by playing 36 minutes against Nebraska-Kearney on Friday, assisting on one of Dere's four goals.
She seemed to score at will in this game, only needing 39 minutes on the pitch to net her four goals and sealing a hat trick just 20 minutes into the match.
Hammer, playing as a right winger, opened the scoring five minutes in when a ball took a deflection and landed at her feet. From just outside the right baseline of the box, Hammer hit a beautiful finish across the goal and into the bottom left corner.
The second goal was more fortuitous, as a miscommunication on a long through ball from CMU led to Cal State Dominguez Hills goalie Abigail Escalante coming out of her penalty box and attempting a clearance which ricocheted off her teammate and bounced over her head. Trailing the play, Hammer easily won the footrace to the ball and had a wide open net for a tap-in.
The hat trick came just shy of 20 minutes in, as right back Stella Bohlender put Hammer through with a searching pass down the sideline. Sprinting onto the ball, Hammer rocketed a shot from outside the box, and Escalante had no chance as the ball rifled into the top right corner.
Dere then added her seventh goal in four matches. Freshman forward Kylie Wells nearly had her first collegiate goal, but Escalante denied her with a lunging stop to her right. The rebound came straight to Dere, however, and the Fruita Monument product easily redirected it into an open net with Escalante still on the ground.
Escalante played the first half and made three saves against four goals allowed. Alyssa Newsom came into the Toros' net at halftime and made six saves against one goal allowed after the break.
The best goal of the match was the only goal of the second half. After an extended period of pressure in which Newsom made three saves in seven minutes, redshirt sophomore midfielder Haley Klasner found herself with space to whip in a cross from the right wing.
Hammer met the ball with a thundering volley and redirected the shot back towards the near post and in with her first touch, completing the four-goal milestone.
The Mavs played lockdown defense as well. Chloe Dody made five saves, most of which were long-range shots that she easily gathered. The Mavs' starting center back pairing of Ally Wachtel and Kaydree Rapp each played all 90 minutes and scarcely felt threatened.
In the later stages of the match, Talea Kuennen put two shots on target to CMU while Michaela Dangler fired a long-range shot that forced a save from Newsom. In final totals, the Mavericks outshot CSUDH 22-8 and 14-5 in shots on goal.
Back to .500 at 2-2, the Mavericks head out on the road next week for matches with two Lone Star State conference teams, as CMU will face Angelo State on Thursday and Lubbock Christian on Saturday.
