Taylor’s Hat Trick Paces Oregon State Past Montana

Taylor opened the match’s scoring with her third goal of the season at the 16th minute.

Photo courtesy: OSU Athletics

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Senior forward Jodie Taylor scored three goals for her second multiple-goal effort this season as the Oregon State women’s soccer team defeated Montana, 4-0, Friday night at Paul Lorenz Field.

The Meyerside, England native scored the first, third and fourth goals of the game for the Beavers, who improved to 2-1 overall this season after the victory.

“We’re very pleased with our play today,” Oregon State head coach Steve Fennah said. “We took our chances fairly well. Jodie was feeling real good and scored some special goals.”

Taylor opened the match’s scoring with her third goal of the season at the 16th minute. Taylor took the pass from Rachael Axon and deposited the ball into the left corner of the net on a 15-yarder to give the Beavers the 1-0 lead.

Taylor continued her night on a breakaway goal at the 63rd minute to give Oregon State a three-goal cushion.

After receiving a pass from Najma Homidi, she sped past the Montana (0-3 overall) defense before finding the back of the net.

Just six minutes later, at the 69th minute, Taylor capped off her spectacular night by streaking past the Montana defense after a deep pass from Loretta “Red” Nixon.

The goal was the sixth of Taylor’s season after posting two against Cal State Northridge to open the season and another against Portland Monday.

In between Taylor’s goals, Melissa Peck made it 2-0 in favor of Oregon State at the 40th minute on her first goal of the season.

She took a curling service from Jetta Sadusky and scored on a header from 10 yards out, narrowly eluding the outstretched hands of Montana goalkeeper Grace Harris.

Montana nearly got on the board midway through the first half, but a shot by Kiki Blake at the 32nd minute from 18 yards out hit the crossbar.

That was the closest the Grizzlies came to scoring as Oregon State goalies Ashley Wood (first half) and Katie Bell (second half) combined to post the team’s second shutout of the season. The keepers combined to make two saves on five Montana shots.

Taylor led the Beavers with six shots, five of which were on goal, while Whitney Goodell had three shots of her own.

Oregon State next takes to the pitch Sunday when hosting UC Riverside at Paul Lorenz Field. Match time is 1:00 p.m. PT.

Adding comments to these stories has been disabled. View the current sports stories Salem-News Sports