After playing four straight games on the road, the Yale women’s soccer team defeated Holy Cross 3–0 in their return to Reese Stadium on a cool Tuesday night.

Though it was a non-league match up, the game was a key win for the team, coming off a tough 1–0 loss to Cornell over the weekend.

“It was important for us to get our confidence back,” head coach Rudy Meredith said. “The number one priority for us was to score goals, because we didn’t score any goals over the weekend.”

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In the first half, Mary Kubiuk broke away from the Holy Cross defense off a pass from Enma Mullo ’12 and shot past Crusader goalie Ashlyn Angell to put the Bulldogs on the board first in the 11th minute.

Mullo said that scoring first was instrumental to the team’s win.

“Most of the games that we’ve lost, [our competitors have] scored in the first 15 minutes, and that makes us have to chase the game,” Mullo said. “That’s not something that we’re really good at. Putting the goal in first let us take control of the game and made them chase us.”

The team added to their lead three minutes later, after Mullo was brought down in the box and scored off the following penalty kick, pushing the score to 2–0.

Midfielder Juliann Jeffrey ’14 scored the third and last goal of the night off a rebound of a deflected Becky Brown ’11 shot in the 67th minute to put the Bulldogs up 3–0. It was Jeffrey’s first goal of her collegiate career.

“It’s amazing. I couldn’t be happier,” Jeffrey said. “We played so well today. It was nice, especially coming from the loss last week and then bouncing back today. Being such a big part of that was awesome.”

The Elis controlled the ball for the majority of the game, outshooting the Crusaders 16–2, and prevented the opposing offense from attempting any shots in the second half. Holy Cross has struggled on offense this season, being shut out in the past six games.

“One of the things we did in the first half really well was that we didn’t give the ball away that much,” Meredith said. “When you don’t give the ball away it’s hard for the other team to have chances to score. I think that was the big difference in the first half.”

The team hopes to take their momentum into their upcoming conference matchup against Penn. Kickoff is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. at Reese Stadium on Saturday.