Scranton Lady Lions Tie Up the Giants

By: Ross Turetsky, Penn State Scranton Athletics

On Tuesday night, the visiting Penn State Scranton Lady Lions soccer team earned a hard fought 4-4 tie with local non-conference foe the Keystone College Giants. With this tie, Scranton sees their overall record move to 1-1-1 as they head into their all-important league play schedule next week.

In the first half, Keystone jumped out to an early 2-0 lead before the road warriors from Scranton came storming right back and scored three straight goals to take a 3-2 advantage. Keystone would knot things all up at 3-3 shortly before the half-time break in the action and after both teams exchanged tallies early in the second half of play, the clubs would go scoreless the rest of the way to draw a gritty 4-4 tie when the final buzzer sounded out in regulation.

Keystone kicked-off the scoring just 1:02 into the contest, when junior Victory Frantz, assisted by senior forward Brooke Freni, lit the lamp to take the 1-0 advantage. Just 50-seconds later, the Giants would enhance their lead to 2-0 when this time their two stalwart star players would switch roles, as Freni got one between the pipes, assisted by Frantz. The Lions from Scranton would show tremendous resilience and fought back, as their stand-out freshman Katie McFarland would score unassisted to cut the deficit to a mere goal at 2-1 at the 23:03 mark. About six and half minutes later, at 29:30, Scranton would tie things up at 2-2 when freshman Ja'Niyah Benton, assisted by fellow freshman Gabriella Martini, would hit the equalizer. The Lady Lions would take their first and only lead of the match just two minutes later, at 31:50, when junior Vanessa Hodges scored the go-ahead goal, assisted by McFarland, to make it a 3-2 ball game. However, to wrap up the high scoring first half affair, Keystone would tie things back up at 3-3 at the 39:07 mark when Freni tallied her second goal of the battle, assisted once again by Frantz.

About five minutes into the second half, the hometown Giants would seize back the lead at 50:41, when this time Frantz got one through for her second score of the day, assisted again by Freni to give their club a 4-3 advantage. Seven minutes later, the Lions would not be denied, as McFarland scored unassisted for the second time on the night, to equalize things up at 4-4 at 57:40, a score that would hold for the duration of the contest.

On the goalie side of things, Scranton had the two headed attack of freshmen Kaleighna Snodgrass and Jocelyn Velasquez share duties in net. Snodgrass saved five out of the eight shots on goal she faced in her 39:07 of hard work. Velasquez was stellar for the Lions as she saved a near perfect 13 out of the whopping 14 shots on goal the Giants fired on her in the 50:53 of action she had. Meanwhile, Keystone had senior, New York City native, Malaysia Bryant between the pipes and she went the distance playing in all 90-minutes of the showdown, as she saved a top notch 17 out of the 21 shots on goal that came her way.

Now first-year head coach Steve Milutinovic and his 1-1-1 Penn State Scranton Lady Lions squad will next take the pitch and open up their crucial conference play schedule when they go on the road to face off against rival Penn State Schuylkill next Thursday, September 18^th, with kick-off slated for a 4pm start time. Meanwhile, new Keystone head coach Jesse Novatski, a former assistant soccer coach at Penn State Scranton, and his 0-2-1 ball club will look to capture their first win on the young season when they next go on the road to battle Saint Elizabeth University in New Jersey next Wednesday afternoon, with a scheduled 3pm opening kick.