Box Score
Grantham, PA – The Messiah College Falcons continued their Commonwealth Conference slate of games with a 3-1 win Wednesday evening over the visiting Albright College Lions.
The Falcons, now 4-0 in conference play, received goals from seniors
Juliana Hershey and
Emily Bower and sophomore
Heather Quirk. For Hershey and Quirk, the goal was their fourth of the season.
Bower's goal, her second in two games, was just the second of her career.
Hershey started the scoring for the hosts just 5:17 into the contest on a sequence of tic-tac-toe passes on the offensive half of the field.
Senior Natalie Zeigler controlled an exit attempt from the Lions, quickly finding teammate
Sara Kongkatong down the right wing. Kongkatong gathered the ball and sent a hard pass towards the center of the Albright circle for a streaking
Juliana Hershey. Hershey redirected the pass through the goalkeeper's pads and in for a 1-0 lead.
The score marked the seventh time within the first ten minutes of a game this season the Falcons had tallied to take a 1-0- all of which have been wins.
Messiah's second goal, and the game-winner, came off the stick of
Heather Quirk. After being awarded their fifth penalty corner of the evening, Hershey sent a pass to sophomore
Becky Ely who one touched a pass to
Brooke Sands. Sands directed a hard blast toward the Lions' cage that the defense thwarted off and sent back out.
Again, a Lions' player blocked a pass and shot back into the circle from Sands leaving Quirk to pick up the loose ball and finish for a 2-0 lead.
Although the Lions managed just four shots in the game, one found the back of the cage at the 27:05 mark and another caused plenty of trouble for Messiah goalkeeper
Molly Gebrosky as time was expiring in the first half.
A prolonged offensive possession for the hosts quickly turned into a rush the other way for the Lions off an errant pass. The transition caught a Messiah defender in between two Lion attackers creating a two-on-one rush for the visitors. A shifty pass from the first attacker left the Lions' Alyssa Tourdot all alone with the ball out in front of Gebrosky. The attempt by Tourdot was staved off by a charging Gebrosky near the top of the circle, making maybe her most acrobatic and crucial save of the season to preserve the 2-1 lead going into the half.
The Falcons sealed the victory midway through the second, again off a corner and as a result of some crisp passing.
Quirk sent the corner in to a waiting
Becky Ely at the top of the circle. Ely quickly moved the ball to her left finding Natalie Zeigler, who sent a hard pass across the top of the circle to teammate
Kelly Martin. A Lions' defender mishandled a hard pass into the center of the circle from Martin and Bower put it away for the final tally.
The Falcons (9-3, 4-0) held convincing advantages over the visiting Lions (7-6, 1-4) in shots (23-4) and corners (14-1). The Lions goalkeeper Marguerite DeLucas made five saves in the loss.
The Falcons will travel to Alvernia University and Hood College in their next two games before returning home for a showdown with #6 The College of New Jersey on October 18, 2012.
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