Courtesy of Kevin Meyer, Grand Valley State Sports Information Graduate Assistant
WARRENGSBURG, Mo. -- The Grand Valley State women's soccer team scored a brace of goals-one in each half- to defeat #2 seed Bellarmine in Friday's 2-1 victory in the Midwest Region Championship.
The Lakers came out firing in the first half, recording two near misses that should have scored. The first, a Marti Corby shot off of a set piece in the 5th minute, richoted off the crossbar. Just three minutes later, forward Samantha Riga's shot got past the keeper before striking the far post and bouncing away from goal.
"I felt we left some goals off the board, particularly in the first half.," GVSU head coach Jeff Hosler said. "Marti and Sam's chances were both great strikes, and we had other players just standing around watching, and those are easy walk in goals (off the rebound). It's difficult to convert all of those chances, but you convert just one of them and you go into half with a 2-0 lead and it's a completely different game. It was a little frustrating for us to not capitalize on those, but we capitalized on enough of them to win today."
The first Laker goal came from the foot of junior Marti Corby, when she took a pass from Kendra Stauffer, sized up her shot and blasted a laser into the top of the net on the far side from about 20 yards out in the 26th minute. The two teams would threaten several more times in the first half without converting, and Grand Valley took the 1-0 lead into the half.
The Laker's second goal would not come until the 75th minute, when junior Jayma Martin corralled a loose ball and fired a volley into the back of the net for her seventh goal of the season and her second game winning goal.
On the defensive end, the Lakers did a good job of limiting good scoring chances for the Knights. The Knights launched 12 shots in the contest, but most of them were from distance, and easily saved by Laker goalkeeper Emily Maresh, who finished with six saves.
In the 80th minute, however, a slide tackle on defense resulted in a free kick for Gorham and the Knights. While it seemed that Maresh might stop Gorham on a free kick for the second time in the game, the strike deflected off the gloves of Maresh and into the back of the net. The goal was the first goal conceded by the Lakers in 10 games.
"I thought defensively we did a really good job, they weren't really dangerous going forward," Hosler said. "They had a lot of shots but most of them were from 30-35 yards out, and right at Emily. Their most dangerous chance besides the goal was from a free kick, exactly how they did end up scoring. They've got a really good ball striker for those set pieces, so I was happy with how we did in limiting their dangerous chances."
After the Bellarmine goal, the Lakers held onto the ball for the majority of the remaining ten minutes, not allowing Bellarmine to get another shot on goal.
The Lakers have now sent the Knights packing in two straight NCAA Tournaments.
"I thought we were O.K today, and a lot of credit goes to Bellarmine because I thought they made us look very average, but at the end of the day, we got the result, and at this stage that is what matters most," Hosler added. "I'm really confident in our group, I know they will rebound from the performance today, and the great thing is that we have another day and a half to prepare for our match on Sunday."
Grand Valley moves on to face the winner of the Central Missouri/Minnesota- Mankato matchup immediately following the Laker victory. The two remaining teams will face off at noon on Sunday in the NCAA Semifinals.
