Nov. 2, 2008
Contact: Brian McCann
FAIRBORN, Ohio -- Third-seeded Wright State used a hat trick from Jen Agueci, including one in the first four minutes, and then held off a comeback attempt by the sixth-seeded Vikings, eventually scoring a 4-1 win on Sunday at Alumni Field in the quarter-final round of the Horizon League Championships.
Cleveland State ends the year after setting a school-record for wins in a season, closing with an 8-10-1 record. Wright State advances to the tourney semi-finals with a 10-8-1 record.
"We seemed to come out playing on our heels for the first couple of minutes," CSU head coach Derrek Falor said. "Once we got going, we did a nice job of setting some things up but Wright State wouldn't let us get close enough to goal to finish.
"I'm not happy with the loss, but I am happy with our effort this season because we really showed some development from the start of the year and made some great strides as a program.
"We are losing a couple of seniors off this team who have meant a lot to the program and although I think that we have advanced in recruiting to say that we will be able to replace their talent, it will be very hard to replace their leadership. Jennifer (Wieand), Abbie (Kakias) and Maggie (Pugliese) were each with us from the very beginning and so much of what this program has become is due in part to their hard work and effort."
Agueci opened the scoring at the 3:15 mark when she took a pass from Amber Kassmer and chipped a shot over the head of CSU netminder Kelly Zinkiewich and into the far corner of the goal.
The Raiders pushed the lead to 2-0 in the 28th minute when Agueci ran onto a long ball down the right side and blasted a shot from the corner of the box that eluded Zinkiewich and found the goal.
Cleveland State came right back, closing to within 2-1 when Danielle Ultican scored on a header at the 38:50 mark.
On the play, Natalie Daniels served the ball to the middle from the left corner and Jessica McCloy was able to get a foot on it and redirect it to Ultican, who was just off the back post. It was Ultican's second goal of the year while Daniels picked up her team-best sixth assist.
The score would remain the same until the final seven minutes when the Riaders would tack on a pair of goals as CSU was pushing up the field in an attempt to score the equalizer.
Bekah Bonny scored first at the 83:16 mark and then Aguecci completed the hat trick when she followed up her own shot that Zinkiiwich couldn't control and scored from point blank on the rebound.
The Vikings had a 16-13 edge in shots for the match with seven of those shots being on goal. Most of the Wright State shots came in the opening five minutes and the last 10 minutes of the contest, allowing CSU to control play for a majority of the match.
"I wouldn't say that we controlled play, I'd say that we had the ball in the middle third a lot," Falor said. "We just couldn't generate any scoring opportunities. All of our shots came on set pieces."
