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For over 75 minutes, the Fordham women's soccer team held tough in the team's Sunday matinee at Rutgers, but in the end left on the wrong end of a 3-0 decision in Piscataway, New Jersey.
With the loss, Fordham falls to 0-3, while Rutgers improved to 4-0.
Though Rutgers ended the contest with three goals over the final 14 minutes, the story was Fordham's defense over the first 75 minutes, as the Rams held the high-powered Scarlet Knights offense off the scoreboard.
Freshmen goalkeeper
Megan Fitzgerald, along with freshmen defenders
Ally Doyle,
Bryce Debolt, and
Nicole Bates and senior defender
Casey Nowakowski, kept Rutgers at bay throughout the opening half. Doyle, getting the start at left back, came up with strong defensive efforts in the first half to steal the ball from the Rutgers attackers or fend off the players on multiple occasions.
When she didn't, Fitzgerald came up big in her first career start, making four stops in the first half.
The Rams almost opening the scoring near the end of the first half, as
Jessica Melendez drew a foul, giving Fordham a free kick from 20 yards out.
Kelsey Dougherty Howard tried to pick the top right corner and would have done so if not for Rutgers goalkeeper Jessica Janosz, who used all of her 6-0 frame to push the ball away at the last moment.
The second half was more of the same, as Fitzgerald came up with stop after stop, including a beautiful kick save against Jonelle Filigno in the 64
th minute, as the freshman stared down the Rutgers' top offensive threat.
However, Fitzgerald, as well as Fordham's defense, would finally succumb to Rutgers, as Madison Tiernan got in behind the Fordham defense on a long ball in the 77
th minute. Tiernan then cut back on Doyle, with Doyle's foot just getting a piece of Tiernan for a foul in the box for a penalty kick. Filigno would then take the penalty kick and score her third goal of the year.
Tiernan would make it 2-0 just four minutes later off a feed from Filigno, while Jessica Puchalski closed out the closing for Rutgers in the 87
th minute.
In goal, Fitzgerald finished with 13 saves in the game, the most for a Fordham goalkeeper since Elisabeth Roald recorded 13 in the 2006 Atlantic 10 Championship game against Saint Louis. Janosz had four saves for the Scarlet Knights.
The Fordham women's soccer team will next be in action on Friday, September 6
th, as the squad hosts Army in the second half of a soccer doubleheader, beginning at approximately 7:30 PM.
