By ISU Sports Information
NORMAL – The Illinois State soccer team improves to 2-4-0 on the season after a dominating win against Green Bay (0-5-1) 2-0, with goals in the first and second halves.
“It was good to follow up our performance at Notre Dame with another strong performance today,” head coach Eric Golz said. “As a team, you’re always a little but concerned with being able to rebound on Sundays but I thought we did a pretty positive job from the start today. We dictated the tempo and the speed of the game and created a lot of opportunities to score and limited them on what they could do. Overall, we’re pretty pleased.”
The Redbirds dominated the game from the beginning, taking 15 shots in the first half alone and limiting Green Bay to only two. Senior Lauren Koehl opened shooting for ISU with a shot in the first three minutes of the match, narrowly missing and bouncing off the far left post.
Freshman midfielder Kate Del Fava opening scoring for the Redbirds with a goal in the 21st minute of the game, which was her first on the season. After skating around some defenders and a quality turn to the outside, Del Fava was able to get the ball up to the top left corner of the net, over the head of Green Bay keeper Kelly Kent.
Koehl opened the second half with her second goal of the season. After displaying some fancy footwork to get past two Green Bay defenders and the keeper, Koehl extended the Redbird lead to 2-0 in the 56th minute of the match.
ISU continued to outshoot the Phoenix in the second half, finishing the contest with 28 shots, eight on goal, and holding Green Bay to only six shots for the match, four of which were on goal.
Sophomore Angel Krell and freshman Abby Basler also contributed to the high shot count. Krell opened the second half with two shots on goal back-to-back in the first five minutes and finished the game with six shots. Basler had a shot in the 89th minute, barely missing the net and bouncing off the crossbar, to finish the game with four shots.
Freshman goalkeeper Haley Smith adds her first shutout to her college record, currently sitting at 1-4-0, with junior keeper Vanessa Niestrom taking the W against Eastern.
The Redbird defense continued to show a composed and controlled style of play, which should become their signature as the season progresses.
“I think we’ve been really focused on learning how to play at a high level, a high speed, and I think we’re getting much, much better at it. Now we really need to learn how to take advantage of some of those winning moments and learn how to win. We need to be good when there’s a small margin of error; we know there will be a small margin of error on Thursday,” Golz said.
The Redbirds are back in action Thursday, Sept. 8 with a matchup against Big Ten foe Northwestern, playing in Evanston. Kickoff is slated for 7 p.m.
