November 1, 2014

Western edges UOIT on penalties, will play for gold on Sunday

The Western Mustangs women’s soccer team is headed to the gold medal game after settling a scoreless draw through 120 minutes on penalty kicks.

UOIT 0-0-1

Western 0-0-1

Final

OT2

UOIT (0-0-1)

Western (0-0-1)

Photo by Michael P. Hall

The Western Mustangs women's soccer team is headed to the gold medal game after settling a scoreless draw through 120 minutes on penalty kicks.

Mustangs keeper Tori Edgar was unbeatable in regulation and came up even bigger in the penalty shootout, turning aside the last three UOIT shooters she faced, giving her team to come back for the 3-2 penalty kick win.

Things looked bleak for the Mustangs after Jenna White, the first shooter for either team, rang a shot off the inside of the left goal post and back out. UOIT's first shooter, Shynice Williams, buried her first opportunity to the left side of the net just above a diving Edgar who had guessed correctly. Western and UOIT exchanged penalty goals after that, leaving the Mustangs trailing 2-1 after three shooters.

That's when Edgar took over.

After being beating Edgar low on the left side the previous shot, UOIT decided to test the Mustangs keeper once more in the same location, but Edgar guessed correctly.

This left the door open for Stefanie DiTella to tie the game for Western when she buried a shot in the bottom left of the net past Ridgebacks keeper Melissa Linton who was diving in the opposite direction.

After another Edgar save, the Mustangs and Ridgebacks were deadlocked at twos after four shooters.

Grace Grafham, a late substation for Western stepped up with the game on the line and just snuck the ball underneath a diving Linton who correctly anticipated the shot would be to the bottom left corner.

Mustangs 3 – Ridgebacks 2.

With the game on the line, UOIT turned to Sonia Sampogna, but the fourth-year forward could not get her shot high enough and put it directly into the chest of Edgar who was shading towards the left side.

The scoreless draw was a story of tight defence and squandered chances.

The Western Mustangs were the first team to put a ball on target when striker Amanda Boyle's shot from the side of the net, about 15 yards out, took an unusual deflection and required UOIT keeper Melissa Linton to turn the ball aside.

In the 17^th, minute, UOIT came close to opening the scoring when forward Jessica Mithrush booted the ball high over the net after getting a clean shot off from the top of the 18-yard box.

The half's best chance, however, came in the 40^th minute courtesy of UOIT.

Cassanra Sribny made a beautiful touch pass that sprung defender Nicole Zajac in alone on Edgar. Zajac chipped the ball over the diving keeper as she came out to challenge, but three Western defenders were in the area to clear the ball out of danger for a UOIT corner.

Those in attendance had their eyes turned towards the UOIT end for the majority of the second half as Western dominated ball possession, but was unable to create any truly dangerous scoring chances. Western sent 14 shots towards the UOIT goal, but only four landed on target.

The game opened up in extra time with neither team wanting to test fate in a penalty shootout out.

At the 24 minute mark of extra time, Sribny broke in alone for UOIT but the play was whistled dead on an offside. Just over a minute later, a UOIT turnover led to Western's dynamic duo of Boyle - OUA's co-leading scorer - and Lauren Winquist getting a two-on-one opportunity, but Winquist was just offside on Boyle's touch pass. Boyle had to play the majority of extra time with a yellow card after getting booked for a hard slide tackle shortly after the extra frame commenced

Western midfielder Angelika Mihalopulos was named Player of the Game for her strong defensive play.