The Saint Louis University women’s soccer team loses one game
and ties another in the Princeton Invitational. The Bills tied
Pennsylvania 1-1 in double overtime, and lost 2-1 to Princeton.
This makes it the first loss for the Bills this season.

The Billikens out-shot the Quakers14-6 and earned six corners as
SLU dominated the second half and both overtime periods. “We never
gave up which is why Christie scored, and we pushed through to the
end,” said sophomore MaKensie Johnson. “We had more trouble moving
the ball around than we usually do, but we just stayed focused and
tried to win every ball.”

In the first half, Penn started the game off early with a couple
of shots on goal, but no one scored. However, the Billikens had the
better first half with more scoring opportunities. Senior back
Carrie Carlson and freshman forward Maureen Hughes nearly scored in
the 28th minute when Carlson had a long serve to the far post that
Hughes headed toward the goal. Penn keeper, Vanessa Scotto, made a
diving save to keep the game tied. “We didn’t give up in the game.
We didn’t score until the last minute of the game, we kept working
hard through out the game,” said Kelly Ferguson.

The Quakers had a good opportunity to score in the 33rd minute
on a free kick from 25 yards out by Rachelle Snyder. SLU keeper,
Amanda Martin, saved the ball, making it the third of the night for
her and kept the score tied.

The Quakers had the first goal of the night in the second half
when Cathy Roe’s corner kick slipped right inside the far post at
62nd minute mark. From then on the Bills looked even more
aggressively to score and out shot the Quakers 8-2 in the half.

SLU finally got the goal to tie the game with just 56 second
left. Senior Anny Lucier brought the ball through the midfield on
the right side then served it up to Jamie Perry in the box. Perry
passed it out wider to freshman Tara Gresco who then quickly kicked
a serve back into the penalty area where sophomore Christie Signo
headed the ball so it sailed in the goal just inside the left
post.

“We weren’t finishing on the chances we had to score, if we had
we wouldn’t have been in the situation of going into overtime,”
Perry said.

The game went into to double overtime but neither team was able
to score. The Bills outshot the Quakers 14-6, and had six corners.
“It is hard to play into double overtime, but we just stayed
mentally strong and focused and we were able to stay in the game,”
Johnson said.

Play for the Bills continued on Sunday when they lost to
Princeton 2-1. The Tiger’s attacked first and scored the first goal
of the game in the 24th minute. Princeton’s Rochelle Willis served
the ball up to the left to Esmeralda Negron who carried it up to
the penalty area and shot the ball to the lower right, slipping it
past Bill’s goalkeeper Martin.

The Bills looked to tie the game in the 62nd minute, when Perry
thought she had the ball alone near the goal, but Tiger defender
Janine Willis was able to get the ball away before Perry could take
the shot.

Princeton made it a two-goal lead in the 73rd minute. Elizabeth
Pillion took a pass wide on the left side from Willis and sent a
cross to the far post that sailed inside the goal. “We weren’t
playing that great, but we stepped it up in the second half,” said
Perry. “We pushed up and pressured the ball more which was to our
benefit.

It created more chances for us to win the 50/50 balls.

With a 2-0 lead for Princeton the Bills really looked to score
and were finally able to get on the board when Gresco passed the
ball ahead to Cigno.

Cigno was able to loft the ball, and it snuck in the goal just
under the cross bar. The one goal for SLU was not enough to win the
game and they suffered their first loss of the season. With the
loss, SLU falls to 3-1-1 on the season.

The Bills will have their first conference matches of the season
this weekend when Southern Miss comes to SLU to play on Friday
night at 7:00, and Tulane will play against SLU on Sunday at 1:00
p.m. “We are excited about conference play,” Ferguson said. “We
want to be undefeated and win the conference.”

C-USA Season Opener

Who: Southern Miss Golden Eagles

When: Tomorrow, 7 p.m.

Where: Robert R. Hermann Stadium