Oct. 20, 2017
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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The No. 9 Penn State women's soccer team played to a 2-2 draw against the Purdue Boilermakers Friday night at Jeffrey Field. The Nittany Lions scored twice in the second half to tie the match twice.
Following Friday's contest, Penn State is now 10-3-3 overall and 6-1-3 against Big Ten teams, while Purdue is now 9-6-2 on the year and 4-4-2 in Big Ten action.
"A lot of good energy out here tonight, I thought the team showed tremendous grit," head coach Erica Dambach said. "Ton of credit to Purdue, those guys dug deep and defended their hearts out. Maddy Williams obviously is a very special player, I thought their goalkeeper was outstanding tonight, and I though our team showed a bunch of grit.
We need to come out stronger and faster, and try to put these teams away early because that's not happening right now. But to keep coming back tonight and finding another way to score tells me a lot about this group."
Purdue opened the scoring Friday night, as Maddy Williams found the back of the net at 13:36. The two teams went into halftime with Penn State outshooting Purdue, 7-3, but trailing, 1-0, on the scoreboard.
Applying pressure on the Purdue defense in the second half of action Penn State was able to knot things up at 1-1 on defender Elizabeth Ball's (Richmond, Va.) goal of the 2017 season at 63:57.
With the match tied at 1-1, Williams struck once again less than 10 minutes later to put Purdue back in front, 2-1, at 73:47.
Late in regulation, Penn State was able to tie the match up once again, as sophomore Laura Freigang (Oppenheim, Germany) scored her third goal of the season, and the second in back-to-back matches, at 86:14 to send the match into overtime.
During the closing seconds of the first overtime, Megan Schafer (Langhorne, Pa.) moved the ball towards goal and fired a shot on goal, but a Purdue defender was there to send the ball out of play. Looking for her third game-winning goal of the season, Freigang placed a shot from the left side of the box and towards goal, but it hit the right post and bounced back into play at 102:54.
The Nittany Lions close out the 2017 regular season on Wed., Oct. 25, against the Wisconsin Badgers. The match is slated for an 8 p.m. (EDT) start at the McClimon Soccer Complex.
NOTES: Penn State leads the all-time series against Purdue, 16-1-2...Penn State outshot Purdue, 23-4…Purdue's goal at 13:36 snapped Penn State's shutout streak at 423:37.