SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Saint Mary's ended their second game of conference play against San Francisco in a 1-1 draw Saturday evening, bringing their six game winning streak to a close but extending their unbeaten run to seven matches.
The Gaels struck first when junior forward
Sydney Middaugh found the back of net in just the seventh minute of play after outrunning two defenders on the counter and finding herself in a one-v-one matchup against Dons' goalkeeper Tyra Bengtsson-Stenseth. Middaugh calmly finished the chance to give Saint Mary's the early 1-0 advantage. The Dons responded quickly after the start of the second half to end the match in a tie.
FIRST HALF SMC 1-0 USF
The Gaels got on the board early, with
Sydney Middaugh hitting the top left corner of the net and scoring off a one-on-one with the Dons' goalkeeper. Despite being outshot 12-6, the Saint Mary's defense held strong and kept the Dons scoreless going into the half. Sophomore goalkeeper
Kate Plachy had a whopping ten saves over the first 45 minutes to keep USF off the scoreboard.
FINAL SMC 1-1 USF
San Francisco equalized in the 50th minute when Kaitlyn Sasadeusz was fed the ball by teammate Natalie Drotzmann and finished past
Kate Plachy. Following this goal, both teams battled back and forth for an action packed final 40 minutes of play, but neither team capitalized on opportunities to gain the lead.
The Dons outshot the Gaels 19-11 over the course of the match. Of these 19 attempts, 14 were on goal forcing Plachy to keep up her season of impressive saves, totalling 12 on the day. Plachy was just one save off of the program's single-game conference record of 13 originally set back in 2007. Leading the Gaels in shots were
Sydney Middaugh,
Ashlyn Vaughn, and
Isabel Lendman with two a piece. Defenders
Amari Hicks and
Molly Silva, along with midfielder
Maddie Lucas, played the full 90 minutes of the match.
LOOING AHEAD
With the result, the draw brings Saint Mary's record to 6-1-2 overall and 1-0-1 in conference play through week one. The Gaels will travel to Southern California next weekend on Saturday, October 4th to face LMU in their third match of conference play. Kickoff is scheduled for 4:00 PM and can be streamed live on ESPN+.
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