Domination has been the name of the game for the Grand Valley State women’s soccer team, and as they reach the midway point of their season, they continued to dominate on the field this past Friday, Sept. 28, traveling to Purdue-Northwest and beating the Pride 10-0.

Goals were easy to come by in the match for the Lakers as Madeline Becker lead the team in scoring with three goals, all coming in the first half. This was the freshman’s first hat trick since joining the Lakers this fall.

Becker wasn’t the only Laker to find the back of the net multiple times in the game, as sophomore Ava Cook scored the third and fourth goals of the game. The offensive attack was spread out for GVSU, with Tara Lierman, Riko Sagara, Raemi DeWent, Chelsea Graves and Kristy Gomez also scoring in the contest.

Head coach Jeff Hosler is proud of the way his team played on offense on Friday, since he’s finally starting to see this team form some chemistry.

“That’s the second consecutive game we started the match really well and played a complete first half,” Hosler said. “Obviously it’s a lot of fun when you score a lot of goals, but we also moved the ball really well. We’ve been working this week on having better combo play up the field, to get ourselves to play with more attention, and it really paid off today.”

The GVSU soccer team is more than just an offensive juggernaut, as goalkeeper Jessica Radice and the rest of the Laker defense put the Pride to shame, only allowing them three shots on goal. 

This win marks the eighth consecutive shutout for the Lakers, as they haven’t allowed a goal since the first game of the season against Bellarmine on Aug. 31.

Hosler really felt like this was a complete win for GVSU, as he was proud of the way his players refused to take their collective feet off the gas pedal.

“I thought we were really creative in the final third and around the box,” Hosler said. “With this young team, we have kids continuing to understand better, [in terms of] the spots they need to be in and how to get there, I think that was on display.”

The win helps the Lakers improve to an impressive 8-0-1 on the season, staying undefeated for the opening half of the season. As the team looks to continue the domination in the second half, Hosler is impressed with the shape his team is in.

“Through our first nine games, we’re in a good spot. We’ve been tested with a good non-conference schedule, and we’ve obviously had the results that we’ve needed to be unbeaten at this point,” Hosler said. “We’re finally starting to finally learn some things we’ve been harping on for several weeks, and it’s fun to coach this young group because you can see that growth from match to match.”

With the postseason getting closer with each passing day, most successful teams would be looking ahead toward the end of the season, ready to fight for a playoff spot, but Hosler and the Lakers have adopted a simpler mindset that has worked well in the past, which is simply taking the season one game at a time. 

“We’ve got to be prepared for the postseason, but I’ve done this a long time and the key is really to just focus on the next day,” Hosler said. “Nothing else is going to matter if we don’t take care of tomorrow.”

GVSU looks to remain undefeated this week, as they travel to Ohio for a match with the Cedarville Yellow Jackets on Wednesday, Oct. 3. The game is set to start at 3:30 p.m.