Lady Jackets Slip, Slide Past Orediggers (9/24/05)
Box Score

BILLINGS, MT – The Montana State-Billings women’s soccer team extended its home field unbeaten streak to 15 games Saturday, scoring 1:50 into overtime to defeat Colorado School of Mines, 1-0.  On a cold and windy day with rain falling steadily throughout, Brittney Sandau (So., Billings, MT) scored the game winner following a melee in the mud in front of the Orediggers’ net.

The win improved the Yellowjackets to 6-2-1 on the season, dropping the Orediggers to 5-3-0.  MSU Billings was trying to keep from losing consecutive games since for the first time since the middle of last season after last Sunday’s loss at Carroll College.  Saturday’s victory also pushed the Jackets’ record against NCAA Midwest Region teams to 4-1-1.  MSU Billings is currently ranked fifth in the region.

“Coming off our worst performance of the season last week, we wanted to have a positive result today,” said Yellowjacket head coach Don Trentham.  “I told the kids before the game that I didn’t care how we won, we just wanted to get the result.  Every team is going to have a bad game during the season.  The important thing is how you bounce back from that.  I thought we looked good today.  We knocked the ball around and held possession.  We found a way to score on a very organized, good defense.”

The game winning goal, Sandau’s fifth of the season, came at 91:50 following an Ally Stroup (Jr., Ojai, CA) corner kick.  After a loose ball in the box, Jenny Moellendorf (Jr., Green River, WY) headed the ball toward the goal.  It deflected off a defender and fell to the ground just outside the goal line where Sandau punched it in.

“We put a lot of stress on scoring off corner kicks, and it was nice to score off a corner today,” said Trentham.  “Jenny did a great job off the corner kick getting it back in the mix and letting Brittney get the shot.  Defensively we didn’t allow them very many opportunities, so I’m pleased with that.  It was good to have Lacey (Albrent) back.  She’s one of the leaders on defense that keeps things solid back there, and often times she starts the attack.”

Albrent (Sr., Ojai, CA) was playing her first game after missing the last three because of a compliance error that occurred when she was a freshman at St. Mary’s University back in 2001.  Although the error was eventually shown to have happened in the St. Mary’s compliance office, Albrent still had to serve a three-game suspension.

With Albrent again anchoring the defense, the Yellowjackets held an 18-6 overall shot advantage in the game, including an 8-2 edge in shots on goal.  Sandau had six shots with four of them on goal.  Stroup also had six shots, placing two on goal.  Yellowjacket goalkeeper Megan Plank (Jr., Phoenix, AZ) made two saves for the shutout.  Her counterpart Marissa Burson made seven saves.

“The weather did affect the game,” said Stoup.  “We’re used to playing on a dry field.  Our passes today were too hard because the ball would skip on the wet grass.  We had to make sure to get good pace on the ball and play it to feet.  I think after a couple minutes we got used to the way the ball was bouncing.” 

The Yellowjackets next play at University of Mary in Bismarck on October 2.  They will return for three straight home games following the trip to North Dakota before closing the season with four-straight on the road.

“In the beginning of the season we did a good job of getting used to playing with each other,” said Stroup.  “The Carroll College game was a blow, but we’re bouncing back from that.  We kept our winning streak at home, and now we can move on to the games on the road.  We know we’re fifth in the region as of now.  We really want to go to the conference tournament and the regional tournament.  Those were two of our goals for the season.”