Box Score PDF
POCATELLO, Idaho – The Idaho State soccer team earned its first conference win of the season Friday evening with a 2-1 victory over North Dakota at Davis Field. The Bengals dominated the Fighting Hawks offensively firing off 29 shots to UND's 11, yet seven saves from North Dakota's keeper Olivia Swenson kept the Fighting Hawks in the game.
"It's great," Head Coach
Allison Gibson said. "It's obviously been a long time coming, and we've improved tremendously from last year. It was still really scrappy and hard fought, and it came down to a difference of heart, will and passion. I think that we had that today, especially in the second half, so I was proud of our team."
Idaho State (4-9-0, 1-2-0 BSC) wasted no time in going on the offensive as sophomore
Kenya Sherman sprinted past North Dakota's (1-7-2, 0-2-0 BSC) last line of defense and fired a shot right over the goal just 23 seconds after kickoff. Just 11 minutes later, sophomore
Nikolina Musto ran onto a free ball, beat her defender and fired a shot from the right side of the box past Swenson's hands to give ISU the 1-0 advantage.
"Nik has such a great eye for the goal," Gibson said. "She is just a tremendous player, very technical, and I think that she saw the little piece that wasn't being covered and drove it hard into that spot. It was a great finish, no doubt."
But, Idaho State's lead was short lived. Despite outshooting the Fighting Hawks 4-2 over the next 12 minutes, UND's Veronica Kessler collected a free-ball rebound off of ISU's goalkeeper
Shawna Hennings and fired a shot from inside the six-yard box to the back right of the goal for the 1-1 tie. Neither team broke free over the final 20 minutes of the first half to head to the break in a tie.
In the second half, Idaho State outshot the visiting Fighting Hawks 18-5 and missed a few major opportunities to score. Yet the Bengals continued to put the pressure on UND, and in the 80th minute ISU took advantage of a big opportunity. At the 78:54 mark, UND's Asia Laudal was whistled for a yellow card on the far left side of the field midway between UND's goal and mid field. ISU's
Tristen Spooner lined up for the free kick and placed a monster kick deep into UND's goal box. Sophomore
Meaghan Bare was there to clean up the rebound and knocked it into the goal for her first goal of the season.
"We had 29 shots today, and that's been our MO all year," Gibson said. "We've had some tremendous output on the offensive side and it's been a matter of actually scoring goals. Two goals should always win a soccer game, and finally for us today, it did. We were really happy about that, and I think it gives us some confidence moving forward in the rest of the conference run."
The Bengals are back in action Sunday, Oct. 2 as they host Northern Colorado at 1 p.m. at Davis Field. The Bears are an even 1-1 in Big Sky Conference play after falling 2-0 at Idaho on Friday afternoon.
