Box Score La Crosse, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse soccer team opened its 2015 Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) season with a 2-1 victory over UW-River Falls Saturday afternoon at Veterans Memorial Field Sports Complex. The Eagles improve to 7-3 overall and 1-0 in the WIAC while the Falcons drop to 3-5-1 overall and 0-2 in the conference.
UWL earned a win in its WIAC opener for the first time since 2008, going 0-2-4 in the previous six seasons. The Eagles' seven overall wins this year are also the most since 2011 (10).
"We knew we had to come out and match their intensity," said UWL head coach
Jason Murphy. "We have a lot of new players. Playing in our first conference game was important and it was nice to get a good result."
The Eagles took a 1-0 lead at 4:17 Saturday as
Alex Cording scored her third goal of the year assisted by
Cassie Handrick and
Margaret Harings. The Falcons came back to tie the match at 1-1 at 11:33 with Lizzy Bruder scoring and Abby Soderholm the assist. It was Bruder's third goal of the season.
UWL came back to take a 2-1 advantage at 21:09 with Harings scoring her team-leading fourth goal of the year.
Maggie Edmark recorded the assist. The Eagles led 2-1 at halftime as the teams combined for 21 shots (15 for UW-River Falls).
A total of 16 shots were taken in the scoreless second half (10 for UWL).
UWL finished with 16 shots Saturday, including seven on goal. Cording totaled four shots while Harings and
Rachel Rogahn each had three and Edmark two. Cording, Rogahn and Edmark had two shots on goal.
UW-River Falls registered 21 shots in the match, including eight on goal. Soderholm had a match-high six shots with two on goal. Bruder and Kayla Windingstad each had two shots on goal.
Kennedy Brault earned the win for UWL, finishing with seven saves.
Erica Cimochowski totaled five saves for UW-River Falls.
"We have a lot of newcomers this year," said Murphy. "We expect them to carry a heavy load and they have done a great job for us up to this point. We expect them to play and do the things we need them to do and they are really maturing quickly. It's nice to be 7-3 on the season. We're excited about where we are and we've done some good things to this point."
UWL returns to action Wednesday, September 30 at UW-Platteville at 7 p.m.
