Pair of Second-Half Goals Lift Ladyjacks Past Northwestern State at Home, 2-0

Friday, September 15

Nacogdoches, Texas

7:00 p.m.

Stephen F. Austin

4-3

Northwestern State

4-4

NWST-4

SFA

Photo by: Hardy Meredith | SFA Photography

Pair of Second-Half Goals Lift Ladyjacks Past Northwestern State at Home, 2-0

9/15/2017 9:39:00 PM | Women's Soccer

Box Score

SFA shuts out the fifth-highest scoring offense in the nation

By: Kevin Meyer | Assistant Director of Athletic Media Relations

NACOGDOCHES, Texas-- The youth shone brightly for the SFA women's soccer team on Friday night at SFA Soccer Field, but it was the play of the team's veteran players that secured a 2-0 win over Northwestern State in the team's true home opener. Starting a lineup dominated by young and talented underclassmen, SFA received a brace of goals in the second half from junior Lauren Hall and senior Hanna Barker to improve to 4-3 on the season, and 1-0 in conference play. The game was the 31st installment in the all-time series between the teams, and gave SFA a 20-6-5 advantage while also extending the Ladyjack's undefeated streak in the series to 17 straight matches.

From the onset, Stephen F. Austin's offense was electric, pushing the pace, dominating possession and getting quality looks at goal. Early shots on goal in the 2nd and fourth minute of play forced the first of what would be many saves by Northwestern State's Alex Latham. The 2016 Southland Conference Goalkeeper's performance in goal would keep the Lady Demons in the match all night long, as she finished with a career-high 14 saves in the contest.

"Tonight was one of our better, more complete performances", said SFA head coach Wally Crittenden. "The energy, the organization was good and the ideas were tremendous. I thought the variety in our attack was great and we had good balance between left, right, direct and indirect, and we tallied 23 shots. their goalkeeper was tremendous tonight, she really did well and we have to credit her for that. To hold them to nine shots isn't bad, I know we had them around 5 or 6 heading into the final minutes there, but they made a second-half push and we weathered that well tonight.Defensively, it feels good to get a shutout here at home. I think we did a really good job from a discipline standpoint, an energy standpoint and an assignment standpoint, keeping up with our rotations to earn that shutout."

Heading into Friday's match, the Ladyjacks expected to be tested by the offense of Northwestern State, which was ranked fifth in the country in goals scored this season, with 23. In the ninth minute, a corner kick by Northwestern State yielded a shot on goal by forward April Trowbridge which careened forcefully off the crossbar and away from the goal, denying the Lady Demons a chance to take the lead. The shot on frame was one of just two shots the Lady Demons would muster in the first half, with the other coming in the 34th minute of play. Building an attack on the left side of the field, the Lady Demons played a ball into the goal box, where freshman goalkeeper Madeline Talbot rose to make a play on the ball, and was taken down to the ground as a result. The ball then bounced to an open Northwestern State player with a wide open look at goal from seven yards out, but the resulting shot was shanked and sent high over the crossbar, ending the threat.

On the other end, the Ladyjacks began to impose themselves on the visiting side, as the early pressure that had yielded two early shots on goal continued to open up the attack. Freshman Katelyn Termini raced down the middle of the field as part of a counter-attack, firing off a solid strike at goal from 26 yards out that sailed just high of goal in the 12th minute of play, but that was just the beginning for the Ladyjacks. Caylon McMillan would take an attempt on goal in the 20th minute, only to have the shot blocked, and in the 24th minute, Lauren Hall forced a Latham save with a shot of her own. In the 25th minute, Barker got a great look at goal, only to see her shot go wide of frame on the attempt. Nonetheless, she persisted, and got another look on goal with was deflected and saved by the Northwestern State defense.

The offensive looks continued to come for the Ladyjacks, as a Barker corner kick service in the 30th minute led to a header by forward Breanna Moore, and a save by Latham. Freshman Sophie Fondren then got in on the action in the 32 minute, as her shot forced a Latham save, and Lauren Hall closed out the first half with a low and powerful strike that Latham made an impressive save on to keep the halftime score tied at zeroes.

Having out-shot the Lady Demons 10-2 in the first half, the Ladyjacks no doubt felt as though they had left some goals on the field in the opening stanza, and made a renewed effort to score coming out of the halftime break. After shots on goal by Moore, Hall and Moore again in the 49th, 51st and 52nd minutes of play showed that the Ladyjacks were getting closer to their opening strike, and in the 53rd minute, the long-awaited go-ahead goal finally occurred. Taking a short corner kick to the left of goal, Barker took one dribble towards the center of the field and fire a left-footed strike to the bottom right corner of goal, which may have scored on its own accord but was flicked into net by Lauren Hall for her first goal of the season. From there, the remainder of the second half was an offensive clinic for the home side, which fired off a further 15 shots in the second half to bring their game total to 25.

In the 58th minute, the Ladyjacks doubled up as Barker and Moore combined for an excellent combo move. Dribbling down the middle fo the field, Barker dished to a wide open Moore, who took a few dribbles towards the baseline before firing a pass across the goal mouth to a waiting Barker, who one-touched the ball past Latham to open up the 2-0 lead. That tally in the 69th minute came after a near miss in the 61st minute, as Barker minced her defender in the open field with some cheeky footwork before firing an excellent stroke to the far post, which beat Latham but was denied by the post to spoil the beautiful combination. After several more good looks on goal in the remaining 20 minutes of play, the Ladyjacks would take home the 2-0 victory, confident in the knowledge that the margin of victory was well more in their favor than the scoreline showed.

"It's easy to get lulled into a pace that maybe you don't train at or compete at, and it was important that we made sure we kept the temp high, kept pushing and just took shots and enjoyed doing that, and we did that tonight", Crittenden added. "We had some real good shot selection tonight, high percentage shots that I'd love to see us take again. The big thing to recognize is that several of the ones we missed were ones that the goalkeeper got a touch on, she had a career night with some tremendous saves and that tells us that we didn't have too many blatant misses."

Overall, the Ladyjacks out-shot the Lady Demons 25-9 in the contest, and 16-0 in shots on goal. The shutout by the Ladyjack defense was the second clean sheet of the season for the club, and quite an impressive one at that, given the offensive prowess that had been the calling card of the Lady Demons thus far. Talbot was not challenged with a shot on goal in her 34 minutes in net, nor was Allyson Smith (2-2) in relief of Talbot. Barker finish with a goal, an assist and a team-high six shots (3 SOG). Lauren Hall notched her first goal of the season while notching three shots on goal, and Breanna Moore tallied her first point of the season with her assist to Barker.

Moving forward, there's little time to rest and even less time to celebrate the win for the Ladyjacks, who will look to defend SFA Soccer Field against Big 12 opponent TCU on Sunday at 1:00 p.m.