Hofstra women's soccer dominates in NCAA tournament win over Providence

The warning horn went off — lightning detected in the area. The players were waved off the field. The 805 fans in the stands at Hofstra Soccer Stadium were told to evacuate to their cars or the nearby arena.

Soon the torrential rain fell in tandem with hail, and lightning bolts flashed across the darkened mid-afternoon sky.

The Hofstra women were dominating play in Saturday’s first-round NCAA tournament game against Providence of the Big East. They led by two in the 57th minute when the break came.

The question was, would the one-hour, 32-minute delay wash away the Pride’s momentum?

Miri Taylor answered the question 13 seconds after the restart in windy, cold conditions: It would not. The senior striker, who had set up an earlier goal by Lucy Porter, scored after a long run. Hofstra emerged with a 3-0 win in the game between two unseeded teams.

"Obviously, the delay wasn’t what we wanted and coming back to those weather conditions was not great," said Porter, the fifth-year midfielder from England who set the program’s career points record with her goal. "But I think we just showed how much character this team’s got and how much we resilience we have."

Now comes the harder part. Hofstra has never made it past the second round. This is its ninth trip to the NCAAs.

The Pride (17-3-1) will play Friday at a neutral site, the University of Southern California. The opponent? Unseeded South Carolina (12-6-1) of the SEC. The Gamecocks stunned second-seeded, 21-time champion North Carolina, 1-0, Saturday in Chapel Hill.

So can the Pride beat the Gamecocks?

"Yes, we can beat them," Porter said. "We’re not scared of who gets thrown up against us."

In their previous tournament trip back in 2019, they beat Loyola Chicago at home in the first round, then lost at top-ranked Stanford, 4-0.

"We’re pretty confident as a group," Hofstra coach Simon Riddiough said. "We’ve got a lot of leadership and a lot of veteran players who have been in this position before. The last year, we played the No. 1 team in the nation, and we kept it quite close for 60 minutes.

"Now we’re playing USC, which has got a strong tradition in the SEC. They’ve been in the Final Four once in the last four years. They’re a very good team."

His team struck for its first goal with 26:03 gone in the first half against the young Friars (10-7-3), who were making the program’s first NCAA tournament appearance since 1993.

Lucy Shepherd sent a cross from near the right corner. Georgia Brown, standing a few yards from the right side of the goalmouth, headed it past goalkeeper Emma Bodmer.

The next one came 4:56 later. Taylor lofted a left-side corner kick in front. Porter headed it in for a goal and two points, giving her that Hofstra record with 123 points, one more than Leah Galton posted from 2012-15.

"I think I’ve cheated a little bit because I’ve come back for a fifth year," Porter said. "But I’ll take it."

After the delay, Taylor scored her team-high 17th.

Hofstra went on to earn its program-record 13th clean sheet. Skylar Kuzmich only had to make two saves.

Providence coach Sam Lopes came away believing that the Pride are indeed capable of beating South Carolina.

"Yeah, absolutely," Lopes said. "I think they are extremely organized, very well coached, very difficult to be scored on, and they only get better as the game goes on."

St. John’s advances. Ava Collins scored in overtime to give the St. John’s women a 1-0 victory over host Brown in a first-round NCAA tournament game. Nicole Gordon assisted on the winning goal that snapped Brown’s 21-game unbeaten streak at home. Naya Lipkens stopped three shots in goal for the Storm. St. John’s next faces Samford on Friday in Durham, North Carolina.