ORONO, Maine. – The UMass Lowell women's soccer team notched their first conference win of the season as they took on the Maine Black Bears under the lights of Mahaney Diamond Thursday night. This is the first program victory for the River Hawks in a six-year series with the Black Bears.
"It was a true team performance and I am proud of the character and how everyone contributed," commented head coach
Mira Novak. "We knew coming to Maine and playing on their field that it was going to be a tough match. They are a very organized team tactically and they were ready for us which made it an extremely hard game for us to play."
The River Hawks were first to strike in their 2-1 victory over the Black Bears when sophomore
Kristin Birgisdottir (Mosfellsbaer, Iceland) sent a cross pass to redshirt sophomore
Karah Fleet (Halifax, Nova Scotia) who was able to fire the ball into the bottom right corner of the net.
Just fifteen minutes later, and the River Hawks struck again. Sophomore
Hailey DuBose (Raynham, Mass.) capitalized on a pass from sophomore
Emily Nelson (Peabody, Mass.), as she took off down the right side of the field, beating the defender, and pushing the ball past the keeper and into the back-left corner of the net.
Heading into the second half, the River Hawks outshot the Black Bears 11-3, with graduate student
Annerens Tijm (Tjerkgaast, Netherlands) making one save while Maine's Kira Kutsinski recorded three.
On a throw in with 20 minutes left in the second half, the Black Bears were able to get on the board as Gaby Panagakos ripped a shot from midfield that bounced just over the keeper's head.
In a final attempt by the Black Bears, Panagakos looked for her second goal of the night, but the shot was blocked as the River Hawk defense stayed strong through the final two minutes of the match.
Up next, the River Hawks will welcome the UMBC Retrievers in a home tilt set for 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon.
"UMBC is a very good team and they are going to come to Lowell fighting," stated Novak. "We only have two days to get ready, but I feel the character performance in tonight's match will help the momentum going into Sundays game."
