Scranton Lady Lions Soccer Drops Conference Opener 

By: Ross Turetsky, Penn State Scranton Athletics 

Dunmore, Pa.- On a picture perfect day on the Dunmore campus, the hometown Penn State Scranton Lady Lions soccer squad lost 6-0 to the visiting Penn State Hazleton ball club in their conference opener. With this defeat, Scranton sees their overall record fall to 0-3 and 0-1 in the all-important league play to kick-off their 2023 campaign.  

In the first half of play, the road warriors from Hazleton jumped out to a commanding 5-0 advantage and in the game's final 45-minutes they tacked on one more for good measure to ensure their dominant six goal shutout victory by the contest's final buzzer. 

Hazleton got their scoring barrage started at the 5:37 mark in the first half when Alexis Marotto scored unassisted to give her team the early 1-0 lead. Then at 11:29, Ehlauna Penn found the back of the net, assisted by Marotto, to increase the advantage to 2-0. Then a little bit later on in the opening half, Marotto scored her second goal of the day, this one unassisted, to stretch out her squad's lead to 3-0 at the 24:34 mark. Then about 11 minutes later, Marotto earned the hat trick, scoring her third and final goal of the matchup, this one assisted by Kaycee Cadden, to bring her team's lead to 4-0 at 35:53. For Hazleton's last goal of the first half, Penn scored for the second time in the contest, this one unassisted, to give her club an impressive 5-0 lead at the 41:10 mark just moments before the break. The sixth and final goal for Hazleton came at 77:53 in the second half of play when Alyssa Marlowe drilled one in to give her team the 6-0 lead they would enjoy by game's end.  

Meanwhile for the Lions from Scranton, their offense accounted for three shots on goal in the showdown, as freshman Lillie Cotillo had a pair and fellow first-year player Kaitlyn Azarsky fired one on goal too.  

On the goaltending side of things, Scranton was led by their stalwart sophomore Jasmine Bender who stopped an awe-inspiring 14 out of the 20 shots on goal she faced while playing the entire 90-minutes of the matinee. While for Hazleton, Taylor Jones earned the hard earned win stopping the one shot on goal she faced while playing the bulk of the time between the pipes with 62:04 of game action. Abby Mehalshick backed up Jones and played the rest of the contest's 27:56 and also stopped the only shot on goal she faced on the day.  

Now head coach Amber Smith and her 0-3 Penn State Scranton Lady Lions soccer team will look to snap their mini three game losing streak to start the young season when they next go on the road this upcoming Thursday afternoon to take on conference foe Penn State Brandywine on the pitch with a 2pm matinee kick-off.