Soccer
Soccer
Soccer vs. Minnesota Duluth: UMD 2, SCSU 3 - OT
Husky Soccer Uses Extra Session To Win Fourth Straight
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Tara Evangelist stays perfect on penalty kicks in 2008, with her overtime game winner at 94:36 against Minnesota Duluth. |
St. Cloud, Minn. – The St. Cloud State soccer team won a thriller today, Oct. 11, in front or a raucous crowd in Husky Stadium. Against Minnesota Duluth (3-8-2, 3-2-2), the Huskies fell behind 2-0 and were held off the board for over 80 minutes before a scoring flurry tied it, and a Tara Evangelist (Mahtomedi, Minn.) penalty kick won it in overtime.
The Huskies (7-4-0, 5-2-0) entered the game riding their much publicized three-game shutout streak, but the Bulldogs put an end to that when Hannah Nygaard scored on a corner kick at the 27:44 mark, giving the guest’s the early advantage.
In the opening period, the Huskies were outshot by UMD 12-3 as the Bulldogs controlled the ball for a majority of the first half.
The second half started out looking like more of the same as Minnesota Duluth went up 2-0 less than five minutes in at the 49:03 mark. The Bulldogs were again to capitalize on a corner kick to extend their lead. For the match, UMD held a 9-4 advantage over SCSU in corner kicks.
As the second half played out, the Husky defense stiffened up and kept UMD off the board, but the offense still struggled to find shots and put the ball on the net. Amy Lindstrom (Fridley, Minn.) finally was able to breathe some life into the Huskies at 80:06 when she controlled a loose ball in front of the Bulldog net and knocked it towards the open goal, but it was the UMD defender trying to kick the ball out, that actually knocked it into the goal for the Huskies first points.
Jessie Cody (Menomonie, Wis.) and Alexandra Pafko (Blaine, Minn.) each had a hand in getting the ball down in front of the net allowing Lindstrom to send it home.
Not five minutes later, at 84:58, the Huskies Lindsey Sather (Eden Prairie, Minn.) knocked in a header off an Evangelist corner kick and all of a sudden a 2-0 deficit with less than 10 minutes to play, had turned into a 2-2 tie with the Huskies holding all the momentum.
Regulation ended tied 2-2, and the game went to overtime with UMD getting the chances early on three consecutive shots. Two went wide and Husky goalkeeper Elizabeth Kelly (Omaha, Neb.) notched her seventh and final save of the day on the third, before Sather provided the excitement bringing the crowd to their feet and set up the game-winning goal.
Jillian Sauer (Stevens Point, Wis.) passed the ball up the sideline to Sather who controlled the ball while battling a defender. The UMD goalie came out to help, but Sather dribbled around her and dribbled down the back line to a wide open net. It initially appeared that Sather had scored the game-winner as the ball bounced across the goal line, but the referee called a penalty just before on the Bulldog defender, negating the goal, but setting up Evangelist.
After taking a moment to collect herself, Evangelist nailed the penalty kick, beating the goalie to her right, to give the Huskies the 3-2 win, and their first come-from-behind victory of the season.
After the game, an elated head coach Becky Heiberger had to say, “This was a great testament to the character of this team, to come back from a 2-0 deficit and win 3-2.”
With that win the Huskies move to 7-4-0 in 2008, and 5-2-0 in the NSIC in Heiberger’s first season. With five conference wins, SCSU sets a school record for conference wins in a season, and their seven overall victories is the most since the 2004 team went 7-8-3. In the game, Pafko and Evangelist tallied a point for the fourth straight game, and Sather scored a goal in her third consecutive match. The fifth of the season for Sather, she sets a new career high with five goals on the season, and ties her mark from last season with 11 points.
With four wins in a row, SCSU has strung together the second best winning streak in school history, bettered only by five straight in 2000. The Huskies will look to get that fifth win tomorrow at 1:00 pm back in Husky Stadium when they host Bemidji State (8-5-0, 2-5-0), who fell 2-1 today to Concordia.
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