Nov. 3, 2009

Box Score

River Forest, Ill. - The Dominican University women's soccer team played 60 minutes with just ten players on the field after freshman Adrienne Ryba (Roselle, Ill.) was issued a red card in the 30th minute, but escaped their Northern Athletics Conference (NAC) semifinals match with a 2-0 victory over the MSOE Raiders. The Stars will now face, NAC frontrunner, Aurora University in the conference championship match on Friday, at 1:30 p.m. at Aurora's Vago Field.

The Stars notched the game's first goal in the 20th minute while still at full strength as Ryba played a ball to fellow freshman Elizabeth Ficek (Bloomington, Ill.) who pushed a header past the Raiders' goalkeeper that hit the crossbar and deflected into the MSOE goal. The score was Ficek's sixth score of the season while Ryba picked up her team-leading eighth assist of the season.

The score remained 1-0 into the 65th minute when Dominican's Rosa Andreuccetti (Elmhurst, Ill.) took advantage of a Dominican penalty kick attempt awarded after the Raiders committed a hand-ball in the box to give the Stars a 2-0 advantage.

Dominican's Jacqui Lani (Green Bay, Wis.) came up huge for the Stars, logging five saves on the Raiders' eight shot attempts, to pick up her fifth shutout of the season. Lani, the NAC's top goalkeeper with a 0.46 goals against average in 11 NAC contests, denied MSOE's Jamie Janczak on a restart opportunity in the 22nd minute, as the Stars' senior goalkeeper left her line to cover up the Raiders' errant shot attempt that would have knotted the score at 1-1.

The win pushes the Stars' record to 10-8-0 on the season. The Stars, the second-seed in the NAC Tournament, lost in double-overtime to Aurora on October 14th at Dominican. The winner of Friday's contest receives the NAC's automatic bid to the 2009 NCAA Division III Women's Soccer Championships.