Cardinal Newman Girls' Soccer is off to a 7-0 start after 2 great games at the University Tournament where they played great soccer, scoring in the 70th minute to put away University, 3-2, to hand the Red Devils their 2nd loss of the season.

Newman then faced a 2-1-2 Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep and clean sheeted the Fightin' Irish 2-0 to bring the Cardinals to their 7-0 record. 

Newman had a long and tiring road to get to 7-0, starting off with Roseland University Prep and the Cardinals rolled through RUP, clean sheeting them 4-0. The Cardinals kept the clean sheet streak by clean sheeting Petaluma, 3-0, heading into a tough away game against Rancho, but they kept the clean sheet streak up by destroying Rancho 6-0. Newman had another tough game against Marin Academy and after being down at Halftime, 1-0, the Cardinals rolled back with goals from Natalia Belmonte and Abella Hunter to win 2-1 and climb to 4-0. Newman then went on the road to play Ukiah and the Cardinals and Wildcats were tied 0-0 at half, but after a Ukiah penalty goal and 2 Newman goals from Abella Hunter and Sofia Lightner, Newman was able to get a gritty win to climb to 5-0 before the University Tournament.

Head Coach John Gilson on the Week leading up to the Ukiah game: "It was a long week. We played some hard minutes vs Marin Academy. Needed to rest several players in Ukiah, it is always interesting when you go up there and we are glad to get out of there with a win."

Newman has had a good women's soccer team over the past few years behind Head Coach John Gilson. They finished 9-6 last year, coming in 3rd in the Oak and losing to Alhambra 4-2 in PKs last year in the NCS D3 Quarterfinals.

In 2019, Newman women's soccer finished 17-4-1, winning the Oak and ending a long control of the Oak League by Montgomery. In the NCS D4 Playoffs, the #1 seed Cardinals beat El Molino 7-0 in the 1st Round, beat Head-Royce 4-1 in the Quarterfinals and beat the Cinderella #12 seed Piedmont 5-0 to move onto the Championship against Marin Academy.

The Cardinals beat the Wildcats 2-1 in double overtime to win NCS. The Cardinals lost to Ponderosa in the 1st Round of NorCals 6-1 to end their incredible season. In 2018, the Cardinals rolled into playoffs at 11-9 and beat Marin Catholic in the Quarterfinals 2-0, but fell to Branson 1-0 in the semifinals. That wasn't the end of the Cardinals season, as they obtained the 6 seed in the D3 NorCal Championship Playoffs.

They were off on their Cinderella journey and beat Center 3-1 in the Quarterfinals, moving on to play Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep. The Cardinals beat Sacred Heart 1-0 and moved on to the NorCal Championship against Bradshaw Christian. The Cardinals handled The Pride 2-1 to take the NorCal Championship.

This 7-0 start is the best 7 game start Newman has had over the past few years and the only year that compares, is 2019, where Newman started out 5-1-1 and eventually went 11-1-1, before losing their first league game to Monty, 3-2. Newman has been building their future up around players from Santa Rosa United and the various club teams around Sonoma County and this year, the Cardinals have a lot of young players with 12 of their players being sophomores or freshmen, a majority of them coming from Santa Rosa United. 

The Cardinals will face the defending league champs Windsor, January 11th to open NBL play.  The future seems bright for Newman soccer!