NEWPORT, R.I. - Senior Noelle Marston (Kingston, Mass.) placed a beautiful shot into the upper left corner of the net for the game's lone goal, as the Roger Williams University Women's Soccer team defeated Salve Regina University by a score of 1-0 at Reynolds Field on Tuesday.

The win improves the Hawks to 9-6-1 overall and 7-1-0 in the Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC), while moving into first place in the CCC. The Seahawks drop to 10-5-1 on the season and 5-2-1 during conference play.

Roger Williams controlled most of the action during the opening half, outshooting the Seahawks by a 10-3 margin.

The Hawks finally broke through when senior Katie Fusaro (Hopkinton, Mass.) set up Marston with a cross. Marston responded with a perfectly placed ball that lofted over the Salve Regina goalkeeper's head and found the upper left corner of the goal for what turned out to be the game-winning score.

The second half was evenly played as both teams had two corners and one shot on goal apiece.

The Hawks defended their one goal lead and applied some stall techniques by holding the ball in their offensive corner to seal the 1-0 victory.

Sophomore Jessica Lane (Marshfield, Mass.) made a match-high five saves during a losing effort in net for the Seahawks, while sophomore Stephanie Jacques (Burlington, Vt.) made three saves to earn her ninth win of the season in net for the Hawks.

“We are starting to click; the last two months of hard work, training physically and mentally, has started to pay off,” said Head Coach Tim Moody. “We are playing much more as a team, rather than relying on a couple of individuals to play big and win the game for us. We have more strength coming off the bench which gives us more options, such as style of play for defending as well as attacking when things need to be changed. This added depth and experience players have gained over the season means we are a better team than we were our first few games.

“Our defensive group has once again been the cornerstone of our success as a team. They live up to the challenge every game and have kept quite very dangerous players of late, limiting their chances, achieving seven shutouts to date. If we do not give up goals, it makes it that much easier to win games, so we need to give the back line and our keeper a lot of credit.

“Noelle [Marston] was on fire today and she deserved to score the game winner. In the last 10 minutes of the game we played very smart with Alexa [Maher] and Kristin [Tetreault] keeping hold of the ball to kill the clock, which in the end closed out the game for us.

“This puts us in a good position on Saturday against Gordon, which we feel we will continue to progress forward and get the results we are looking for to finish out the last conference game of the season.”

Both teams return to CCC action this Saturday, with the Hawks hosting Gordon at 3 p.m., and the Seahawks traveling to face Curry at 11 a.m.

- Release courtesy of the Salve Regina University Sports Information Department