Women’s soccer ties against rival Gannon Knights

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Zach Dumais, Opinion editor

The Mercyhurst Lakers traveled a short distance for their away game on Wednesday, Sept. 15 against hometown rival, the Gan-non University Golden Knights. The match was an exciting one and in spectacular rivalry fashion, it ended in a 0-0 tie. Despite the tie, the Lakers played very well on defense.

Sophomore goalkeeper, Maddie Elbro, made 10 saves throughout the match with 3 in the first half. Mercyhurst was unfortunately unable to generate much offense in the first half as they only had 1 off-target shot in the entire half. The Golden Knights, in com-parison, were able to put up seven shots with three being on goal. The Lakers got out to a better start in the second half when freshman forward, Karah Van Horn, took a shot in the 69th minute.

The shot was initially saved by the Golden Knight goalkeeper, but it bounced and Van Horn was able to corral it. She then had a second opportunity from inside the box but couldn’t quite get the bounce she wanted as it went off the crossbar. In the 80th minute, Van Horn put another shot on goal but this one was also unable to fall as it was saved by the Golden Knight goal-keeper.

The second half was much more balanced compared to the first in terms of shot distribution. The Golden Knights had six shots with five being on goal. The Lakers had ten shots in the second half with four being on goal. The regulation period ended in a 0-0 tie despite each team’s various opportunities.

The first 10-minute overtime period ended with no change in the match. Sophomore forward, Emily Mijares, was able to get past a Gold-en Knight defender in the second 10-minute overtime period. She did have a great shot on goal, but the Gannon goalkeeper was barely able to tip it in order to make the save. The Lakers corner kick that came after also almost went in and the opposing goalkeeper once again had to make the save. These events occurred in the 105th min-ute and neither team was able to break the tie in the remaining five minutes.

The end result was a 0-0 tie after 110 total minutes of play. “The rivalry between Mercy-hurst and Gannon made it a hard battle, but I am proud of my team for how hard we fought. It was a great feeling coming out with a clean sheet because as a team we deserved it,” said Elbro.

The rivalry match did get a bit chippy given how physical the match turned out to be. There were 33 fouls between both teams and the Golden Knights even received three yellow cards. There were four total corner kicks and the Lakers had three of them but they were unable to capitalize on the opportunities. Mercyhurst finished the night with 13 total shots and six of them were on goal.

In their next game, the Lakers traveled to play Slippery Rock University on Sept. 18 and brought back a 1-0 win. The singular goal was scored by Mijares around the 18 minute mark. The next home game for the Lakers will be played Sept. 22 at the Mercyhurst Soccer Field. The women are set to play against the University of Pitts-burgh at Johnstown at 4 p.m.