HONOLULU – Freshman Aly Moon tied a single-game school record with three goals as the Sun Devil soccer team overcame an early deficit to defeat Hawaii 5-2 on Sunday in ASU's final game of the Outrigger Resorts Shootout hosted by the University of Hawaii.
For the second time in as many games the Sun Devils would have to rally after falling behind early. ASU would once again have to come back without injured junior forward Cali Farquharson, the team's leading scorer each of the last two seasons.
Of ASU's 11 starters on Sunday, six had started one or fewer games, including five freshmen. Like in Friday's contest at Texas, ASU's youth would play a role in the game's first goal as Hawaii scored in the eighth minute to claim an early 1-0 advantage.
“We started a little slow and were disorganized,” said ASU head coach Kevin Boyd of the game's opening minutes. “I don't know if we weren't communicating well out there, but it looked like we were not picking up players in the midfield and we were too loose on the back line.”
Unlike Friday's game against Texas in which it did not get things going until the second half, ASU's response to the early score was relatively quick. Soon the team started to settle down and with that came a series of attacking opportunities on Hawaii's end of the field.
ASU knotted the score at 1-1 in the 22nd minute when junior forward Whitney Kanavel found Moon heading toward goal. The pass took a high bounce and Moon, facing the opposite direction, timed her header perfectly, lifting the ball out of the reach of Hawaii goalkeeper Monk Berger and into the net for the goal.
The Sun Devils would take the lead in the 35th minute when defender Rachel Ometer, playing in an attacking position took a perfect pass from Moon, pulled up and laced her shot into the net for the first goal of her career.
“Once we woke up a little bit we started defending better and gave less space,” said Boyd. “That means we were winning the ball better and they weren't getting chances coming forward. And then we got a really nice goal: a good service from Whitney and a little header in the box from Aly and that gave us a taste and all of a sudden it's 1-1.
“A short while later we put Rachel up top and she scores her first collegiate goal. She gets a ball in behind them. She's got speed so she should have gone on a breakaway, but instead she pulled up, looked at the goalkeeper and just hit one far post behind her. Great finish. Probably not the perfect thing to do as a forward, but a great finish.”
In the second half, Moon would score two goals in the span of 2:16. Fellow freshman Jazmarie Mader assisted on the first goal while Moon took advantage of a defensive mistake to score the second goal (third of the game).
Moon's three goals tied the single-game school record also held by Cali Farquharson (2012) and former Sun Devils Karin Volpe (2010), and Patrice Feulner, who accomplished the feat three times (2x in 2000 and 1x in 2001).
Boyd said he was impressed with the variety of ways Moon found to score and, coupled with her effort on Friday in which she drew the penalty kick that tied the game, was pleased with her first weekend in a Sun Devil uniform.
“She scored one with a header, she got one with really special skill and she got one by just working hard,” said Boyd. “So she gets three goals today and draws the tying goal for us on Friday. Pretty impressive, and really savvy for a freshman.”
Tommi Goodman would finish off the scoring for ASU with her third career goal, which came in the 77th minute.
Hawaii added a goal in the 88th minute to make the final score 5-2.
All things considered, Boyd was satisfied with how the weekend played out. Going forward, he feels the team will be a lot better off if it can eliminate the slow starts.
“We are showing character and that we have some fight to us,” said Boyd. “I don't like us getting down early and having to catch up. On the flip side I like that we were able to come back for a tie and a win, but we have to sort that out. It's a youth issue and we need to sort it out.”
The Sun Devils return to action later this week when they travel to the state of Illinois for matches at Illinois on Friday (7 pm CT/5 pm PT) and at Loyola Chicago on Sunday (1 pm CT/11 am PT).