CHICAGO, Ill. - It was the home opener for the Chicago State women's soccer team as they hosted the Southern Illinois-Edwardsville Cougars from Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep on Sunday afternoon. Chicago State showed a lot of fight and never gave up during the match. The Cougars erased a halftime deficit and used a two goal comeback to take the lead in the later stages of the second half. However, the opposition had a response as SIUE answered to tie the game and both teams settled for an early season tie in non-conference play.
Chicago State dominated on the SIUE end of the field as the Cougars took a ten shot attempts in the first half. SIUE started the scoring late in the first half as Chicago State went into halftime down 1-0. The second half was a great half and showed what Chicago State is capable of. In the earlier part of the second half, Chicago State answered after an amazing high arching shot from freshman
Leah Rocha for her first career goal to tie the game 1-1. Fellow freshman
Morgan Perry earned her first career point with the assist on the Rocha goal. 23 minutes later during the 80th minute of play, Sophomore
Maya Dixon broke free behind the SIUE defense and was able to find the back of the net with a right footed goal.
Tara Savage earned her first point of the year with a long pass to earn the assist. With about five minutes to go SIUE answered and neither team could not break the tie as the game ended in a 2-2 tie.
Goalkeeper
Aviana Gutierrez made six saves on the day.
Gabby Flores led the Cougars with five shows on the day and
Renee Davis had four shot with three of them being on goal.
Hear from head coach Kevin Larry:
"For our first home game, I was encouraged by all the support of Cougar Nation who came out to watch today. The ladies responded well after Thursdays loss and showed a lot of competitive spirit. What we worked on between games at practice, are things I saw them execute today. To see them bounce back from an early season defeat and end the next game in a draw is something I am very of them battling through."
Larry also noted the positive as Chicago State prepares for their next opponent:
"Hopefully going forward we can use some of the things we did positive this game to use in the upcoming game and fix some areas but we will continue to work to get positive results moving forward."
The Chicago State women's soccer team are back at home on Wednesday August 20 as they take on Purdue Fort Wayne from Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep with kickoff scheduled for 12:00 PM (CT).
