LYNCHBURG, Va. -- In a battle between two of the top defensive teams in the country, the Christopher Newport women's soccer team came out ahead of the University of Lynchburg (4-2-4) with a late goal from leading scorer Sarah Smith, 1-0. The top-ranked Captains extended the nation's longest road winning streak to 13 games while improving to 10-0-1 on the season after the team's seventh shutout in the first 11 games this year. 

In a game that saw the bulk of the action limited to the middle of the field, chances were rare on both ends of the field. There were just four shots on-goal, two apiece, recorded in the first 70 minutes of action before the Captains' attack took control late in the game. 

Ahead of the decisive goal by Sarah Smith, the Captains nearly netted the go-ahead goal on a pair of excellent takes in the middle stages of the second half. In the 62nd minute, rookie Molly Seventko was off to the races after a nice pair of passes up the middle from Nyah Savage and Emily Talotta. The freshman got to the ball first around the top of the box, but her shot was saved by the Lynchburg goalkeeper. 

Seventko was again a factor in another excellent chance by the Captains in the 72nd minute when she beat her defender to the ball on the goal line and served an excellent ball into the box where Sarah Rhiel was home to volley a hard shot toward the goalmouth from about eight yards out. Rhiel's would-be go-ahead score was snared on a diving stop by the Lynchburg keeper, for a key save in the match.

Moments later, Smith chipped her Seventko onsides and into the box where the freshman attacker met the ball and a defender at the same time, taking a tumble in the box but play continued and Lynchburg cleared it away.

With momentum shifting fully in favor of the Captains, it was only minutes later when the CNU attack would finally break through on a counter-attack play through the middle. After a Lynchburg throw-in, Re Slater snagged the ball from the Hornets and found Emma Ricci on the sideline. After cutting back to the middle, Ricci found Talotta open in the middle of the field and the senior looked dead ahead for about a 40-yard dash with Smith out in front of her on the left side. Once she neared the Lynchburg box, Talotta slipped a perfect pass to Smith, who wasted no time slotting a dynamite shot into the narrow window between the keeper and the right panel of the goal on her first touch. 

The goal came in the 76th minute and would hold up as Smith's fourth game-winning strike of the season. Talotta notched her fourth assist of the season and became just the third player in program history to accumulate 25 helpers in her career. She reached the mark faster than any previous Captain, in just her 55th career game. 

With under 25 minutes to play, the Captains continued to lock down defensively while Molly Beegle had a pair of near misses on the offensive end. She led the team with four total shots in the game, while CNU out-shot the home team, 11-8 overall. 

Defensively, Jill McDonald, Kate Eissenberg, Rhiel, and Slater each played the full 90 minutes in the shutout while Ellie Cox also pitched a complete game in the tough battle in the midfield.

The win was the first for the CNU Women's Soccer team at Shellenberger Field since 2006 and just the second all-time in ten trips to Lynchburg. The Captains own the longest road winning streak in NCAA Women's Soccer, with a program record 13 straight victories in hostile territory, while also extending the program's overall unbeaten streak to 34 consecutive games (32-0-2). CNU tied Lynchburg, Messiah, and TCNJ for the eighth longest run of consecutive games without a loss in Division III history. 

Christopher Newport will return to action this Saturday, October 8 as they travel to Gettysburg College for a 3:00 pm matchup against the Bullets.