Lady Cougars roll up nine unanswered in season opening victory; Maria dishes out third best single season effort #GoBarton

The Barton Community College women's soccer team scored nine unanswered goals Saturday in capturing an 9-1 season opening win over State Fair Community College. The Lady Cougars responded to the Roadrunners' lone goal one minute into the contest to lead by three at the half before piling on five more second half net shakers to avenge last year's scoreless tie in Sedalia.

Barton will next play a scrimmage on Tuesday at Bethel College in a 7:30 p.m. kick before a weekend trip to Oklahoma to take on Seminole State College and Rose State College.

Laura Maria had an impressive debut as the Brazilian freshman dished out four assists on the day, the first to the birthday girl and fellow countryman Larissa Fagundes to tie it up just five minutes into the contest.

The Lady Cougars took the lead for good with seventeen minutes left in first half action as sophomore Thamires Lima found Domenica Pena for the game winner. The freshman from Ecuador rattled the nets for the second time seven minutes later weaving through the defense before beating the State Fair keeper to the top post.

Barton closed out first half scoring less than a minute later as Johanna Behrens drilled a penalty kick after Jessica Simental was taken down in the box by the Roadrunner keeper.

After just missing on her last long free kick attempt, Hays sophomore Sydney Sulzman scored her first of the year dialing up long distance from forty yards out to the top-90 near post pushing the lead out to 5-1 with 24:24 remaining.

Brazilian freshman Rayssa Neres added two more goals to the scoreboard in a matter of eight minutes, the first coming with eighteen minutes to play weaving through traffic blasting near post then at the ten minute mark put away Maria's cross for a 7-1 lead.

Maria registered the assist hat trick with 8:45 to play setting up McPherson sophomore Jordan Bruner's first goal of the season then found fellow freshman countryman Larissa Modesto at the top of the eighteen resulting in a rocket drilling the net far post for the final 9-1 margin.

The four assists tied for third best on the Lady Cougar single game historical chart, one behind Flavia Bernardes in 2009 and Yesenia Garcia 2008 effort. Bernardes also had two four assist games in 2009, joining Theresa Crane in the same season, with the most recent four dime effort coming from Mariana Poveda in 2012.