Women's Soccer Closes Regular Season with Important Match at Lehigh; Hall Named to TDS Team of the Week

Bucknell (10-3-4, 4-1-3 PL) at Lehigh (7-4-4, 4-3-1 PL)
When: Wednesday, Oct. 24, 7 p.m.
Where: Ulrich Sports Complex, Bethlehem, Pa.
Streaming: ESPN+
Live Stats: LehighSports.com

Patriot League Table
Army 5-2-1      16 pts.
Bucknell 4-1-3      15
Loyola 5-3-0      15
Boston U. 4-2-2      14
Lehigh 4-3-1      13
American 3-4-1      10
Holy Cross 2-3-3 9
Lafayette 3-5-0 9
Colgate 2-5-1 7
Navy 2-6-0 6

Wednesday's Games
Loyola at American (3 p.m.)
Boston University at Army (6 p.m.)
Lafayette at Navy (6 p.m.)
Bucknell at Lehigh (7 p.m.)
Holy Cross at Colgate (7 p.m.)

Bucknell at a Glance

Bucknell and Lehigh meet on Wednesday on the Patriot League's final match day of the regular season. The Bison and Mountain Hawks have both clinched Patriot League Tournament berths, but Wednesday's game in Bethlehem carries major seeding implications.
Bucknell can finish anywhere from first to fifth, depending on Wednesday's results. The Bison come in with a 4-1-3 league record and are tied with Loyola for second place with 15 points, but Bucknell owns the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Greyhounds. That means that with a victory at Lehigh, the Bison would finish no worse than second and would claim the top spot if Army loses or draws at home against Boston University.
Meanwhile, Lehigh can still move up as high as second place. The top two seeds receive byes into the semifinals, and the No. 3 and 4 seeds get to host quarterfinal games.
Bucknell and Lehigh both come in playing outstanding soccer. The Bison are 4-0-2 in their last six outings and have kept clean sheets in five of the six. They are coming off a banner week with a 1-0 road win over Ivy League power Princeton, which was No. 8 in the RPI rankings at the time, and a 2-0 Senior Day win over Lafayette on Saturday. The Mountain Hawks have won three straight over Colgate (1-0), American (4-1), and Loyola (1-0) to secure their postseason berth.
There are 28 Division I teams that are still unbeaten at home, and Bucknell and Lehigh are two of them. The Bison are unbeaten (8-0-6) in their last 14 home matches dating back more than a year, including a 7-0-2 home ledger this season. Lehigh is 4-0-2 at the Ulrich Sports Complex this season and 10-0-2 at home dating back to a 3-2 loss to Drexel in the second game of the 2022 season.
In each of the last two mid-weeks, Bucknell has spoiled a team's unblemished home record. Loyola and Princeton were both unbeaten on their home grounds until the Bison came away with 1-0 victories.
For the second straight week, Bucknell claimed a member of the Top Drawer Soccer Team of the Week. Last week it was Teresa Deda, who assisted on Paige Temple's game-winner at Loyola and then had a goal and an assist in a 3-3 draw with Boston University. Now it is Jenna Hall's turn, as she was named this week's top goalkeeper in the country after stopping all 15 shots on goal against Princeton (10) and Lafayette (5).
Hall and Deda also earned Patriot League weekly honors on Monday. Deda was the Midfielder of the Week and Hall the Goalkeeper of the Week.
Paige Temple and Deda scored second-half goals in Saturday's 2-0 win over Lafayette. Temple, who is red-hot with three goals in her last four games, headed in a cross from Henna Andican early in the second half, and then Deda iced it in the 88th minute when she picked off a pass from the Lafayette center back and finished the breakaway 1v1 with the keeper.
Last Tuesday night at Princeton, the Bison pulled out a 1-0 win over a Tigers side that came into the game with an 8-2-3 record and a No. 8 RPI ranking. Princeton's only previous losses were to Penn State and Brown, two teams currently ranked No. 4 and 15 in the United Soccer Coaches Poll. The only other teams to shut out Princeton this season were Penn State and Rutgers.
Bucknell had been 1-10-1 all-time against Princeton, with the lone win coming in 2007 and the draw in 2016. In the other 10 matches, the Tigers won by a combined 36-6 margin, including a 6-1 verdict on Bucknell's last trip to Princeton two seasons ago.
Deda and Andican have ranked among the top three Patriot League scorers all season. Deda now has seven goals and seven assists, and Andican has five goals and seven assists. The seven assists are tied with Loyola's Baylee DeSmit for the league lead. Deda is second to DeSmit (9) in goals, and Deda (21) and Andican (17) rank 2-3 in total points behind DeSmit (25).
Deda is only sixth player in Bucknell history with at least seven goals and seven assists in a season, and just the second since 1994. Hall-of-Famer Lisa Gibbons had 19 goals and 19 assists in her jaw-dropping 1994 season, and Gibbons also had 12 goals and eight assists in 1992. Leigh Raymont and Liz Woodrow both had nine goals and seven assists in 1994 (Bucknell scored a school-record 74 goals in 19 games that season), and the most recent to do it was Maddie Mulford in 2016 with 10 goals and eight assists.
Over the last two weeks, Deda has now had a hand in five of the team's seven goals (3G, 2A), and she has goals in three straight games. She now has 11 goals and 27 assists for 49 career points in less than three collegiate seasons. Her 27 assists are the second-most in team history.
Along with Deda and Andican, Temple (4-3-1), Hannah Stuck (2-4-8), Reese Evans (3-1-7), Kelley Francis (3-0-6), Katie Schiano (1-4-6), and Meghan White (1-4-6) are other top point-producers.
Hall currently ranks eighth nationally in total saves with 103, and her .851 save percentage ranks 30th nationally and best in the Patriot League. Hall is tied for the league lead with eight shutouts, a figure that ranks 23rd nationally.
The Bison went 5-2-1 in eight matches leading up to the conference opener. The only two losses came in succession to top-25 sides Georgetown and Pittsburgh, but after that they posted a 1-1 draw against a good Villanova team, followed by three straight wins over La Salle (3-1), Colorado College (5-2), and Air Force (2-1).
Bucknell is the two-time defending Patriot League champion. Last season, the second-seeded Bison won penalty-kick shootouts against Boston University and Army in the Patriot League Tournament, and then dropped a 1-0 overtime decision at Ohio State in the NCAA Tournament.
Seniors Jenna Hall, Hannah Stuck, and Brooke Tracey are this year's team captains.
Kelly Cook is in her ninth season as Bucknell's head coach, and she has led the Bison to four Patriot League championships in her first eight years. Cook owns an 81-58-23 (.571) overall record at Bucknell, including a 44-18-14 (.671) mark in Patriot League play.
Cook knows the Patriot League very well, as she was a two-year captain and three-time Second Team All-Patriot League selection at Colgate, where she recorded 27 goals and 23 assists in her career. She ranked in the top 10 in program history in career points (77) and assists. As a junior in 2004, Cook (then Kelly Kuss) was named Patriot League Tournament MVP after leading the Raiders to the league title, and then her team knocked off Arizona in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, marking the first NCAA win in school and league history.
Cook has two new assistant coaches in 2023, as former Clarion head coach Alexa Ream and goalkeepers coach PJ Steiner have joined the program.

Lehigh at a Glance

Lauren Calabrese's side is heating up at the right time with three straight wins and a 4-1-1 mark in its last six.
It's been an unusual Patriot League ride for Lehigh, which has played very well against the top half of the league but dropped points to teams at the bottom end of the table. Currently in fifth place, the Mountain Hawks are 2-0-1 against teams above them in the standings but just 2-3 against the teams below them.
Lehigh has scored 20 goals and conceded only 14 in 15 matches thus far, including a 7-3 differential at home.
It's been a balanced ledger for the Mountain Hawks, as 10 different players have a goal. Ryelle Shuey, the Patriot League Preseason Defensive Player of the Year and a three-time Patriot League Defensive Player of the Week, leads the way with four goals, including the late game-winner on Saturday against Loyola. Her other three goals have come against Big East foes, with two against St. John's and one against Villanova.
Ava Schaller (3-4-10) is the points leader, followed by Faith Dobosiewicz (3-3-9). Sophia Lis, Aminah Baruwa, and Hope Flanegin all have two goals, and Emma Roesing is tied for the team lead with four assists. Sophomore Maggie Ousouljoglou has been one of the league's top goalkeepers this season. She has appeared in 14 of the team's 15 games with 13 starts and has 48 saves with only 13 goals allowed. Her 0.98 goals-against average is second-best in the league, and her .787 save percentage ranks fourth. Ousouljoglou did have to leave Lehigh's most recent game in the second half after landing awkwardly on a terrific save on Baylee DeSmit's free kick, and freshman R'Reeyah Mabry-Francis came on for her collegiate debut and made two saves to finish off the shutout of the then-first-place Greyhounds.
Sophomore defender Paige Christakos is the younger sister of former Bison center back Chloe Christakos. A 2021 Bucknell graduate, Chloe was a starter in her final two seasons and was a Second Team All-Patriot League selection in the COVID-abbreviated spring 2021 campaign. Their brother, Tommy, played wide receiver at Cal.

The Bucknell-Lehigh Series

Bucknell is 18-13-5 all-time against Lehigh, including a 2-0-2 record in the last four meetings.
These two teams met in similar circumstances last season. Playing in Lewisburg on the final day of the regular season, the Bison needed at least a draw to secure a first-round bye, and they got it with a 1-1 deadlock. Ava Schaller scored in the 13th minute for Lehigh, but Meghan White answered with her first career goal in the final minute of the first half.
Rylee Donaldson's overtime goal gave the Bison a 1-0 win on their last trip to Bethlehem in 2021. That secured a top-four seed and a quarterfinal home game for the Patriot League Tournament, and the two teams met again five days later in Lewisburg. That time Bucknell won 2-0 on second-half goals from Hannah Stuck and Claire Mensi.
The Bison and Mountain Hawks have met four times in postseason play. In addition to the 2021 home win, Bucknell also advanced past top-seeded Lehigh in penalty kicks in the 2005 semifinals. The Bison won the title two days later with a 3-1 win over Army in Bethlehem. Lehigh defeated Bucknell 1-0 in the 2010 semifinals at West Point, and 2-1 in overtime in the 2018 quarterfinals at Emmitt Field.

Up Next

Teams seeded 3-6 will turn right back around and play a Patriot League Tournament quarterfinal game on Sunday, with the two higher-seeded teams hosting.
The top two seeds will then host semifinal contests next Thursday, followed by the championship match at the highest remaining seed on Sunday, Nov. 5. The final will be televised on CBS Sports Network.

Women's Soccer Closes Regular Season with Important Match at Lehigh; Hall Named to TDS Team of the Week

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Henna Andican

Teresa Deda

Rylee Donaldson

Reese Evans

Kelley Francis

Jenna Hall

Jenna Hall

Claire Mensi

Katie Schiano

Hannah Stuck

Hannah Stuck

Paige Temple

Brooke Tracey

Meghan White

Meghan White

Women's Soccer Closes Regular Season with Important Match at Lehigh; Hall Named to TDS Team of the Week

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Henna Andican

Teresa Deda

Rylee Donaldson

Reese Evans

Kelley Francis

Jenna Hall

Jenna Hall

Claire Mensi

Katie Schiano

Hannah Stuck

Hannah Stuck

Paige Temple

Brooke Tracey

Meghan White

Meghan White

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