St. Cloud, Minn. - The 4th seeded Huskies were victorious in their first round match vs. fifth seeded U-Mary Wednesday evening at Husky Stadium in the NSIC US Bank Championship Tournament. The win advances SCSU to the semifinals where they will take on 8th seeded Upper Iowa.
The Huskies came into the game on a six game win streak and extended it to seven with the win over the visiting Marauders. SCSU and U-Mary had the same conference record at 7-5-1 coming into the match, but the Huskies 3-2 OT win on Oct. 23 gave them the tie breaker and allowed them to host the first round match.
SCSU opened up the scoring at 13:10 of the first half to take a 1-0 lead. Junior midfielder Mary Morhardt was able to squeeze a pass through some defenders that left senior forward Chelsey Permenter with just the U-Mary goalkeeper, Ashley Akers, to beat. She fired the shot into the left corner of the net for her second goal of the season.
A corner kick help put the Huskies up 2-0 late in the first half. At the 40:58 mark, senior midfielder Laura Moline got her third goal of 2011 when she hit a header into the back of the net. The play was set up on the corner kick from junior midfielder CoCo Cammon which went to the far side of the net to Morhardt, who headed the ball back across the net to Moline who made the score.
Second half play was physical and exciting as the action came right down to the final horn. The Marauders made it a one goal game when sophomore midfielder Michelle Bachman-Williams scored her team-leading 13th goal of the season at the 48:52 mark of the match. She was set up on the goal by junior midfielder Michelle Jones.
Kenzie Hanzlik had five saves for the Huskies. Akers also had five saves for U-Mary. Final shot count was in favor of U-Mary 11-10.
SCSU will take on 8th seeded Upper Iowa at 2:00 pm at Minnesota State University in Mankato on Friday Nov. 4th. Upper Iowa pulled off the upset of top seed Winona State 1-0 Wednesday evening in Winona. Earlier in the day Minnesota State defeated Bemidji State 1-0 in Mankato and Minnesota Duluth defeated Augustana 2-1 in Duluth. MSU and UMD will face off in the earlier game Friday in Mankato. The winners of the two semifinal matches will square off in the championship match on Sunday Nov. 6th at 1:00 pm in Mankato.