KALAMAZOO, Mich. – The Western Michigan women's soccer team scored its most goals since the 2016 season during a 4-2 victory over the University at Buffalo on Sunday, Sept. 23 at WMU Soccer Complex.

The Broncos remained undefeated at their home field (6-0) with its second Mid-American Conference win of the season, jumping out to a four-goal lead for a season-high four goals scored.

WMU scored twice in each half, including two penalty shot goals from Grace Labadie.

The Brown & Gold struck early in the sixth minute, as Alyssa Burke got the home team on the board with her fourth of the season, finishing on a Grace Labadie corner kick.

Ten minutes later, Colleen McKay sent a great centering pass into the box for Morgan Otteson to score her third of the season.

After a hot start, the Broncos saw some pushback from the visiting Bulls, who ended up with a 7-6 shot advantage heading into the break, but the score still read 2-0 in favor of WMU.

"Our group has really latched on to the concept of liability," said head coach Sarah Stanczyk. "We knew coming in that Buffalo was going to be a big challenge for us and that we were going to have to be on the front foot to match their potent attack."

Grace Labadie, the Broncos leading scorer from last season, got off the schneid in the second half. An aggressive attack from WMU allowed for two penalty kicks, in which Labadie capitalized on both for her first and second tallies of the season, giving Western Michigan a 4-0 lead with 20 minutes to play.

"We definitely wanted to try to put more pressure on them because we knew their attacking group was capable of putting a ton of pressure on us," said Stanczyk.

The Broncos were unable to preserve the shutout late in the match, as Buffalo broke through at the 80^th minute. The Bulls scored soon after on a free kick and applied more pressure, but WMU held on for the 4-2 win.  

"I think we were lucky to put four away to give us that cushion," Stanczyk commented. "We spoke at the end of the game that we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard of accountability in these matches because we may not be so lucky to score four. For teams to win championship teams, we can't let good teams like that back into the game."

Hannah Sargent made a career-high eight saves en route to earning the win in net for WMU, improving her record to 8-2.

The Broncos (8-2-0, 2-0-0 MAC) return to action next Friday, Sept. 28, as they head to Toledo, Ohio for their first road conference match of the season against the Rockets. Kickoff is scheduled for 4 p.m.