Wheaton, Ill. -- After opening its 2025 home slate against UW-Eau Claire on Friday night, the Wheaton women's soccer team was back in Joe Bean Stadium 24 hours later for the final match of this year's Bob Baptista Invitational. It was a meeting of the Thunders on Saturday evening as Wheaton came up against Trine University in the four-team tournament for the second time in the last three years. Tonight's game was a competitive and scrappy affair, but the hosts got a goal from Lily Lindquist early in the second half which proved enough to seal a 1-0 victory and hand Trine its first loss of the young season. Wheaton is now 3-0-1 on the year and has yet to concede a goal from open play through four matches.

The visitors from Indiana needed just two minutes to log the game's opening shot attempt on Saturday, but the first set piece opportunity and the first effort on target both came from the hosting Thunder, as Lindquist drew a save from the Trine goalkeeper on 12 minutes. Trine registered two shots and two corner kicks in the first 16 minutes of the match, but its attack found less and less joy as the half wore on, and Lindquist's early sight of goal ended up being the only effort on target for either side in a sleepy and defensive first period.

The visiting Thunder finally got their own look at the Wheaton net five minutes into the second half, but Kylie Houghton was in the right place at the right time and cleared this shot off of the goal line to keep the score at 0-0. This intervention proved doubly valuable just three minutes later when the go-ahead goal arrived courtesy of her fellow junior, Lindquist. The midfielder carried the ball through the center of the pitch with an effective dribble before laying it off for Friday's goalscorer Emily Setran, who looked up and found Grace Crowder at the top of the box. The junior forward was facing away from the Trine net and had a defender marking her closely when she received Setran's pass, but no one in navy blue tracked Lindquist's continued run into the penalty area, so Crowder executed a deft touch to steer the moving ball into Lindquist's path. The Minnesota native happily capitalized on the open shot from 14 yards out and knocked it past the exposed goalkeeper to bag her second goal of the campaign and break the deadlock in a tight contest. (VIDEO)

Trine looked to get back on the front foot after conceding this smooth opener and forced the first save of the night from Leah Roe six minutes later. Wheaton was content to defend the lead it had worked hard to establish and only managed to put one more shot on target in the remainder of the contest while prioritizing defensive structure and solidity. The visiting Thunder had two more looks at goal in the final stages of the defensive struggle and nearly tied the game via a long-range chip shot with ten minutes left, but Roe watched it the whole way and tipped the ball over her crossbar to keep the scoreline at 1-0 in Wheaton's favor (save pictured at left).

Trine fired off one more shot attempt and carved out two corner kick set pieces in the closing exchanges, but the Wheaton back line held firm once again and managed to see out a third clean sheet win from just four games.

The guests posted small advantages in the box score statistics on Saturday, with Trine tallying more shots at an 8-7 split and more efforts on frame at a 4-3 total while also generating twice as many corner kicks. But Wheaton won the possession battle at a 54-46% measure over 90 minutes and made the difference by burying its best chance of the game and not giving its MIAA opponent the chance to do the same.

Roe made three saves in the process of claiming her third shutout of her debut season, having enjoyed a terrific start to life for Wheaton. Lindquist led the Thunder with two shots on goal on Saturday and became the first player on the team to score twice this season, while Crowder is the first to reach multiple assists. Setran picked up an assist on the game-winner, as well, and Marissa Davis was responsible for the team's only other attempt on target tonight.

Following a successful end to its home-opening weekend, the Wheaton women's squad will head back out on the road for its next contest. The Thunder make the drive into the Windy City on Wednesday for a 4 PM test at 11th-ranked University of Chicago.