SARANAC LAKE — The negative thing for the North Country Community College women's soccer team, according to coach Kent Egglefield and his players, is they weren't able to shut out their fourth consecutive opponent when they hosted Jefferson on Wednesday.

The good thing is the Saints found the back of the net a bunch of times while earning an 11-1 victory over Cannoneers.

NCCC raced out to a 6-0 edge by the intermission, and tacked on five more goals after halftime with mainly the backups leading the charge, on the way to improving to 5-1.

The women's match was the first of a doubleheader at NCCC's Sparks Athletic Complex field. The Saints men's team wasn't as fortunate in the second game, falling 4-0 to the Cannoneers.

In the women's match, sophomore Nidia DeArmaYero had another dominating performance as she nears the Saints all-time goal scoring mark. She scored twice and tacked on five assists, which gives the Salmon River High School graduate 36 career goals. DeArmaYero is now nine goals shy of the college's record of 45 set by Alicia Cook a season ago.

Cassie Norton, a freshman from Bathurst, Australia, finished with a hat trick, and Skyelin Bradford, Lindsey Reeve, Jenny Dejung, Taylor Razis, Coryn Young and Charlotte Renshaw each tallied once in the win. Razis also recorded four assists.

The Saints didn't take long to get on the board, with DeArmaYero burying the game's first goal 2:13 into the opening half. NCCC owned an 8-0 edge before the Cannoneers finally got on the board when Calleigh Thomas netted their lone goal with 8:10 gone in the second half.

After giving up their first goal since a 4-0 loss to Genesee Community College on Aug. 25, the Saints responded with the final three markers of the game, which were all netted in a span of 4:03 midway through the second half.

"It's good to win, and yeah, we won handily, but I don't like giving up a goal," NCCC coach Kent Egglefield said. "Our offense, they've pretty much been unstoppable. The nice thing about today was we sat all of our starters for the last 30 minutes of the game.

"It's just great to have everybody get time, everybody get minutes, everybody get experience," Egglefield continued. "When they can keep getting 30, 40 minutes a game of experience like that, it's really good for the team because as we move on in the season, all the players who were just gaining their playing time and earning it, they're going to be even more helpful then they are now."

Reeve, a Saranac Lake graduate, scored the Saints fourth goal 20:49 into the match when she chipped a long shot from outside the penalty box over the head of Jefferson keeper Taylor Allen. The goal was the third of the season for Reeve, a sophomore who first played for NCCC in 2017 before taking last season off on the pitch. Although the Saints have been scoring in bunches, Reeve said their defense is where the team's experience lies.

"Up until this game, we've been able to keep the ball out of the net. That's what our goal was, to keep getting shutouts," Reeve said. "We've used the defense pretty well, we're switching the field. We have a lot of returning players on defense. They've played with each other and they are solid and have a lot of chemistry."

Despite winning by a 10-goal margin, Egglefield hopes to see a better performance from the offense, especially with some tough competition on the horizon.

" I'm very happy with the depth we have, I'm very happy with how the team plays, but I'm not going to lie; sometimes I'd like to see the forwards be a little more selfish," Egglefield said. "We get a little too cute with our passing sometimes. At the beginning of the game, we got a little too cute instead of just burying it. That was fine for today, but we're going to be playing some teams that are top ranked nationally. We aren't always going to get chances like this. We have to learn to capitalize."

The Saints next travel to Massachusetts for a pair of weekend matchups. They'll face Holyoke Community College Saturday and play Bristol Community College on Sunday.

"We're proud of our start, and we're looking to go into the weekend and keep it going," Reeve said. "We want two more."

(Story and photo courtesy of Lou Reuter and the Adirondack Daily Enterprise)