Lady Lions Seize their First Victory of the Soccer Season

By: Ross Turetsky, Penn State Scranton Athletics 

On a warm Saturday matinee on the home Scranton campus, the Lady Lions captured their first win of the soccer season, in a 2-0 shutout victory over conference rival Penn State Hazleton. With this impressive win, Scranton's overall record improves to 1-3-1, as they were coming off of a hard earned 2-2 tie to Trinity Washington in their last contest, and their all-important league play record is now 1-2 with only two games left in the 2022 regular season campaign. 

After a scoreless 45 minutes of first half play, Scranton would kick-off the day's scoring about 14 minutes into the second half action, when stalwart freshman forward Jasmine Bender lit the lamp unassisted at the 59:35 mark to give her squad a 1-0 advantage over Hazleton. Then after holding onto a slim, pressure packed one goal lead for most of the second half, Scranton would finally put the game on ice with only 23 seconds remaining in the contest, when Bender scored her second unassisted goal on the day, this one at the 89:37 mark to give her Lady Lions the 2-0 cushion they would enjoy by the game's final whistle. Bender led the way on offense, as she had a game-high eight shots on goal, to go along with her two goals in the match. Meanwhile the other four shots on goal for Scranton came from senior Kelly Velehoski who had three and sophomore Maria Keifer who had a shot on goal as well. 

On the goalie side of things, the Lady Lions from Scranton were led by their stand-out senior goalkeeper Trinity Gammaitoni, as she pitched the impressive shutout victory between the pipes while saving all 11 shots on goal she faced from Hazleton while playing the entire 90 minutes of the match. Meanwhile for Hazleton, they were led in goal by Linsey Fisk who did a solid job in net saving 10 out of the 12 shots on goal she faced from Scranton while also playing the entire ball game.