Aug. 21, 2009

Box Score

CHICAGO - The Loyola University Chicago women's soccer team fell to DePaul, 4-0, in its season opener on Friday night (Aug. 21). The Ramblers (0-1-0) gave up an early penalty kick to the Blue Demons (1-0-0), who never looked back after tallying the first goal.

"Give DePaul credit, they just played better than us, plain and simple," said Loyola head coach Frank Mateus. "We had a couple mistakes early on that they made us pay for. We just never got it going."

Twelve minutes into the contest, DePaul capitalized on a Loyola penalty inside of its goalie box, giving Tara Strickland a penalty kick, which she buried into the lower left corner to give the Blue Demons a 1-0 lead.

DePaul struck again in the 26th minute when Shannon Williams sent a lead pass down the left side of the field to Lauren Pagone, who was able to squeak a dribbler past Rambler goalie Katie Groesch to extend DePaul's lead to 2-0.

A header by Dominique Locascio off of a corner kick in the 52nd minute gave DePaul its third tally of the night. The scoring was capped by an errant Rambler pass that squeaked past Groesch to make it 4-0.

Loyola's best defensive play and best scoring opportunity came within five minutes of each other early on in the second half. Five minutes into the frame, Groesch prevented a charging Williams from scoring when she slid out at the top of the box to kick the ball away. Four minutes later, freshman Kristin Papierski led the Rambler charge up the field, but was thwarted by the Blue Demon defense when her pass across the middle was intercepted.

"Our training has been good, but the game environment is always different," said Mateus. "We have to have a short-term memory, turn back around and get ready for Sunday."

The Ramblers return to action this Sunday (Aug. 23) when they take on Dayton at 1 p.m.