Kistler Nets Hat Trick as Scots Blank Blackburn on Monday

Monmouth wins home opener 5-0

by Patrick Curry Jr. & Nathan Baliva

MONMOUTH, Ill. (09/09/2025) — On Monday, the Monmouth College women's soccer team played their home opener and beat Blackburn College 5-0 as Morgan Kistler (Kokomo, Indiana) scored a hat trick in her first career home game.

The Scots started the game hot with a goal coming from Lauren DellaValle (Peoria, Illinois) just 1:44 seconds into the game. Just three minutes later, Kistler netted her first for a 2-0 lead.

Avery Parks (Bloomington, Illinois) started the game on defense and then switched to offense and scored a goal for the Scots with 23 minutes left in the first half. That was the last goal of the half with the Scots dominating the first half leading 3-0.

After going up 3-0 many might think that the game is over, and complacency can kick in but there is still another half of soccer to be played. "It's really hard, even I struggle with getting complacent. But it's really just keeping that mentality that we still have to play to our level, and talking on the field really helps," said Parks

It's safe to say the Scots did not become complacent in this game. They started the second half picking up right where they left off.

Kistler scored another goal to start the second half at 47:10. She completed her hat trick with another goal at 52:34. These goals put the Scots up 5-0 and concluded the scoring for the night.

"I thought that if we played the way that we can, then we'd come out with the win," said head coach Lucas Henderson. "There's gonna be days like today where the game slows down and we have to be able to meet our own levels, and I feel like there were a lot of moments where we did and some where we didn't. And I think overall it's a game we should be happy about."

MONMOUTH MOMENTS: Kistler has five goals in her last two games ... Her hat trick is the first since last October and the 31st time in Monmouth history a player has scored at least three goals in a game ... She took six shots, all on goal while Mariah Hobson (Princeton, Illinois) took five shots ... The Scots used 21 players and except for Goalkeeper Bronte de Zwart (Adelaide, Australia), no one played more than 66 minutes ... De Zwart, who played all 90 minutes, had four saves and she has started two shutouts this season ... Shots were 31-5 of Monmouth with shots on goal at 18-4 .... Nylea Cruz (Silvis, Illinois) and Jackie Contreras (Peoria, Illinois) both had two assists ... DellaValle added an assist to her goal while Kiersten Medinger (Silvis, Illinois) also had an assist ... The Scots are 8-1 all-time against Blackburn with five straight wins ... The teams last met in 2018 ... Monmouth plays at Illinois Wesleyan on Wednesday night before hosting Buena Vista at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday.