How Penn State women’s soccer rallied for the win to advance in the NCAA tournament
After falling a goal behind in the first half, Penn State women’s soccer scored three unanswered goals to rally back and defeat Stony Brook 3-1 in the first round of the NCAA tournament on Friday at Jeffrey Field.
With World Cup champion United States Women’s National Team members and Penn State alumnae Alyssa Naeher and Ali Krieger in attendance, the Nittany Lions played on the front foot all game, registering 25 shots — 12 of which found the target.
Despite trailing 1-0 coming into the second half, No. 4-ranked Penn State scored two goals in a matter of 50 seconds (from Frankie Tagliaferri and Sam Coffey) to give the Nittany Lions their first lead of the night.
For the final goal of the game, junior Coffey carried the ball from midfield and slid in Kerry Abello to increase her goal and assist tally to nine a piece for the season, and to gift head coach Erica Dambach her 31st NCAA win with the program.
Reflecting on the game, Stony Brook head coach, Tobias Bischof credited Penn State’s ability to rely on key players as the deciding factor in the match.
“In the second half, Penn State did what Penn State does,” he said. “They’re a very well-coached team with Erica and they were the national champion in 2015. They have a couple of special players and those players did a very good job for them and we gave up those two goals.”
For her part, Dambach said she couldn’t be more comfortable with the role some of her more experienced players are taking in guiding the group toward the championship.
“You just saw them take over the game,”she said, referring to Coffey, Tagliaferri, Abello, Ally Schlegel and Kaleigh Riehl). “We want to work with them all season long, but when the important time comes here at the end of the season, it’s their team and they’re going to make us go and we’re going to go as they do.”
With her fourth goal in the past five games, Coffey been one of Penn State’s most key players this season, but the New York native said that at this point in the season, results are the only thing that matters.
“It’s not about the numbers, it’s just about us winning and moving onto the next round,” she said. “As coach said, that first half wasn’t good enough, but we knew exactly what we needed to do, we knew we were the better team here and we just needed to show it. And we definitely did in the second half.”
Coming off their eighth Big Ten championship and now riding an 11-game win streak, the Nittany Lions will look to continue their success in the NCAA second and third rounds starting on Nov. 22nd.
This story was originally published November 15, 2019 at 11:47 PM.