Campus News

September 8th, 2026

CSM women hold off Garrett College, 1-0

Lady Lakers generate two scoring chances in final 26 seconds

McHenry, MD – The Lady Lakers had a very specific gameplan for Saturday’s women’s soccer contest against visiting College of Southern Maryland.

“We talked about giving ourselves a chance and putting ourselves in a spot to grab at least a point,” said Garrett College head coach Zach Ward, referring to the standings point teams receive for a tie.

The Lady Lakers certainly followed their gameplan. Garrett had two chances in the final 26 seconds to score the tying goal in the 1-0 loss to CSM.

The first started when GC goaltender Payton Finley sent a kick right down the middle of the field with just 30 seconds remaining. Avri Wareham came up with the ball and pushed a pass ahead to Rosabel Cardy, who got a shot off before colliding with Southern Maryland netminder Raynna Ratchford.

Cardy’s shot went just wide of the near right post, but Garrett was awarded a free kick at the spot where Ratchford collided with Cardy. That gave GC one last opportunity at tying the game with 14.4 seconds left, with Ward bringing all 11 Lady Lakers into the box for the free kick.

“We took a chance, put numbers in the box, and had a great opportunity to score,” said Ward.

Abi Mitchell took the free kick from the top-right corner of the penalty box. Her kick was deflected by the defensive wall, with the ball popping up into the air toward the right near corner of the goal.

Ratchford got a hand on the ball, with both Wareham and Ava Hunt trying to deflect the ball into the goal. The ball eventually went wide over the goal line off CSM, giving the Lady Lakers a corner kick, but time ran out before the kick could be taken.

While Ward would have loved to pick up a point in the standings, he was pleased with his team’s improvements since a 7-2 loss to Howard Community College to open the season.

“We fixed a lot of issues from the Howard game and we moved better as a team,” said Ward. “Payton had some really good first-half saves to keep the game scoreless.”

“We had much better communication,” said Finley, who stopped 10 of 11 CSM shots. “The defense really played well.”

CSM’s LJ May had the game’s only goal with 20:11 remaining in the second half off a Lilly Stiffler free kick from the left corner.

Stiffler lofted the ball in front of the middle of the goal, with Finley getting her hands on the ball but not being able to control it. May, positioned in front of the net, banged home the loose ball for what proved to be the winning goal.

Howard 7, GC 2

Columbia, MD – Gabriela Rodriguez had three goals and three assists last Wednesday as Howard scored the final four goals of the game to pull away from the Lady Lakers.

Abigayle Mitchell scored just 3:24 into the contest off a Rosabel Cardy feed to give GC an early 1-0 lead. Rodriguez scored the equalizer just 75 seconds later, and Melody Scott scored the next two goals to give the host Dragons a 3-1 lead.

Ava Hunt’s unassisted goal with 15:13 remaining in the first half pulled Garrett within 3-2, but Rodriguez and Maeve Daly scored unassisted goals to stretch Howard’s lead to 5-2 at the half.

Rodriguez completed her hat trick and Caly Smithson scored to account for the second-half goals.

Howard finished with a 21-14 advantage in shots while GC had a 4-3 edge in corners.

Dragon goaltender Sophia Newman stopped eight of 10 shots on goal by the Lady Lakers. GC goaltender Payton Finley had six saves on 13 shots.