Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell Women's Soccer Hosts Penn State Wednesday Night at Emmitt Field
9/22/2009 8:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
Sept. 22, 2009
LEWISBURG, Pa. -- When the 2009 Bucknell women's soccer schedule was completed, surely one of the first dates circled was the Sept. 23 home game against perennial national power Penn State. That date is now upon us, as the Nittany Lions visit Emmitt Field at Holmes Stadium on Wednesday night. Admission is free of charge for the 7 p.m. contest, and fans are encouraged to arrive early as a large crowd is expected.
When these two teams met last year in State College, the Nittany Lions were ranked No. 10 in the nation and the Bison were 2-1-1 and coming off a big victory over Maryland. It was a 1-1 game in the second half until Penn State scored twice in 63 seconds en route to a 4-2 victory.
Both sides have found the road a bit rougher in 2009. The Bison dropped a pair of home games over the weekend to put an abrupt end to a three-match winning streak. Sunday's 3-0 loss to a strong Virginia Commonwealth team sent Bucknell to 4-5 on the season.
Former Bucknell assistant coach Erica Walsh's Penn State team is back to .500 (4-4) after starting the year 2-4. Most recently, the Nittany Lions scored a 2-0 win over a James Madison team that defeated Bucknell earlier in the year. Penn State has been ranked as high as No. 5 nationally by Soccer America this season but is currently unranked.
Prior to the Bucknell-Penn State contest, the Bison men will be hosting Saint Francis (Pa.) at 3:30 p.m.
BISON WOMEN'S SOCCER NOTEBOOK
Coverage
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Bucknell vs. Penn State Series Notes
- Penn State has won all 13 previous meetings against Bucknell. Six of those contests have been decided by two goals or less.
- These two teams have met twice in the NCAA Tournament. In the first round in 2001, Penn State prevailed 3-1. That game was tied at 1-1 at halftime before the Nittany Lions scored twice in a two-minute span mid-way through the second period. In 2005, No. 1 seed Penn State outmanned the Bison 6-0 in the opening round, upping their season record to 20-0-1 at the time.
- This will be the fourth all-time meeting in Lewisburg. Penn State won here 3-1 in 1995, 6-0 in 1997 and 5-1 at Emmitt Field in 2007. In the 2007 encounter, played before a record crowd of 1,400, it was a scoreless game at the half as the Bison limited the Lions to only five first-half shots. Penn State scored twice in the first nine minutes of the second half to go up 2-0, but Chelsea McGorry got Bucknell back in it after finishing a Christa Matlack feed in the 60th minute. It stayed 2-1 until the Bison tried to press forward in the final eight minutes, and Penn State countered with three insurance goals, the last coming with just one second showing on the clock.
- Last season at Jeffrey Field, No. 10 Penn State's Danielle Toney scored just 1:46 into the game, but the Bison settled in and kept it a 1-0 game for the rest of the half. Then just 56 seconds into the second period, Christa Matlack barged in on a breakaway and chipped a shot over the goalkeeper's head to even the match. It stayed 1-1 until Katie Schoepfer scored in the 59th minute, and then just 1:03 later Nikki Watts made it 3-1 off a feed from Schoepfer. The Bison were still not done, as Jennifer Dervarics scored on a breakaway in the 67th minute to make it a 3-2 game. Bucknell continued to pressure the Penn State zone, generating a number of good scoring chances over the next 20 minutes. Perhaps the best opportunity came on a corner kick with 4:30 remaining. Dervarics' header hit the near post, then Canter tried to back-heel one in from close range, but Naehring was there for the save. Penn State iced it on a counter-attack, with Zoe Bouchelle scoring with only 2:15 left in regulation.
About Penn State
- The Nittany Lions began the year by defeating ninth-ranked Virginia 1-0 at home, and after a close 2-1 loss to No. 14 West Virginia, the Nittany Lions edged UConn 3-2. They dropped their next three, however, to No. 5 Florida State (2-1), Rutgers (1-0) and No. 8 Wake Forest. That marked their first three-game losing streak in 14 years.
- Penn State has since won back-to-back games over Boston University (3-0) and James Madison (2-0).
- Penn State second-year head coach Erica Walsh was an assistant coach for the gold-medal-winning Team USA at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and Walsh has a long history with Bison coach Ben Landis. Walsh was Bucknell's very first graduate assistant coach in 1997, the year Landis left Bucknell to coach at Lehigh. The two coaches had become acquainted while working camps together and competing against one another in the Patriot League, and in 2000 when Walsh became the head coach at Dartmouth, she hired Landis as her assistant. The two worked together for three seasons, helping the Big Green to three NCAA berths, two trips to the final 16, two Ivy League titles and a national ranking as high as No. 13. When Walsh resigned after the 2002 season to work on her MBA at Lehigh, Landis was named her successor as head coach at Dartmouth.
- Alyssa Naeher, Christine Nairn and Katie Schoepfer were all named to the M.A.C. Hermann Trophy preseason watch list over the summer.
- Danielle Toney is the team's scoring leader with 12 points on five goals and two assists thus far. Christine Neim has two goals and three assists, while Schoepfer and Nikki Watts both have one goal and three assists.
- Naeher has started all eight games in goal for Penn State. She has 33 saves with only eight goals against, and has two shutouts to her credit.
- Penn State brings back one local player in starting fullback Megan Monroig, a Northumberland native and a graduate of Shikellamy High School.
- PSU sophomore Jess Rosenbluth and Bucknell junior Brooke Stokes both attended The Shipley School.
About the Bison
- Bucknell is looking to bounce back from a disappointing weekend. Coming off three straight victories, the Bison dropped home matches to Marist (3-2) on Friday and VCU (3-0) on Sunday.
- Bucknell had produced back-to-back shutouts entering the Marist game, then unexpectedly allowed three goals in the first 27 minutes of the game. Kelliann Doherty made it 3-2 in the 54th minute, but the Bison could not get the game tied.
- The Bison played a solid second half against Marist, then backed it up with a strong first half two days later against VCU. Bucknell dominated possession in the opening 45 minutes against the Rams but had to settle for a scoreless tie at the half. Then VCU countered with two goals in the first seven minutes of the second half.
- So far in 2009 Bucknell has taken goal-scoring balance to a record-setting extreme. The Bison have nine goals this season, all coming from nine different players. That is a new program record for most goals to start a season by different players. In 2004, Bucknell's first six goals of the year came from a different set of boots.
- Of those seven goals, four have accounted for a Bucknell player's first career goal. Freshman Kayla Yee and Jenna Tryon and juniors Rosemary Walker and Julianne Harris all have notched their first career tallies.
- Patriot League Preseason Offensive Player of the Year Christa Matlack got into the scoring column for the first time in the Marist game, finishing a feed from Brooke Stokes. The goal was Matlack's 17th of her career, moving her into sole possession of 10th place on Bucknell's career list.
- Senior goalkeeper Kathryn Sutton entered at halftime of the Marist game and presided over a scoreless second half, then she played the full 90 against VCU.
- Bucknell leads the Patriot League in shot attempts per game at 14.0. The Bison have outshot their opponents 126-118 this season, but they have been outscored 16-9.
- Freshman defender Corinne Collins saw her first career action in the second half against VCU.
Looking Ahead
- Following Wednesday's game against Penn State, Bucknell will travel to Cornell on Sunday to take on the Big Red at 3 p.m. Cornell is 1-5-1 on the season and will host Columbia in its Ivy League opener on Friday night.
