March 7, 2011
Contact: Dan Carr
CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Cleveland State women's soccer team opened its Spring slate on Sunday (March 6) with a 5-1 victory over visiting Kent State. Five different CSU players scored in the exhibtion win.
"I'm happy with the result, as it truly shows that we are on the right track and that we are beginning to play with confidence against a quality opponent," head coach Derrek Falor said.
Cleveland State scored three first-half goals, all in the span of seven minutes. Jess Bound got the Vikings on the board at the 22:30 mark, firing a shot from 25 yards out that flew into upper left corner of the goal.
"Right from the start, I thought we competed for the ball very well," Falor said. "Jess had a fantastic, big-time goal."
At 27:15 CSU scored again off a corner kick. Carla Ragone kicked the ball into play and Frederike Dubeau headed the ball in the direction of the goal. Kent State's keeper was able to punch it away in the direction of a Golden Flash defender, who attempted to head the ball out of play. Valerie Stahl was able to get under the ball and head it toward the net, successfully sending it into the left corner for Cleveland State's second goal of the day.
The Vikings' third goal came just under two minutes later, when Taylor Vidovic broke away from the Kent State defense and shot the ball from about 12 yards out, scoring at the 29:12 mark.
"In the first 30 minutes we did a fine job of winning balls in the middle third of the field and turned it into some solid possessions with our backline," Falor said. "Carla and Marina (Taylor) were fantastic in their one-on-one battles. Both were fierce in their tackles, and Carla was probably the best player on the day for us."
Cleveland State kept the offense rolling in the second half, scoring two more times to build a 5-0 lead. At 49:45, Vidovic baited the KSU goalkeeper out of the net and passed the ball to Clare Berry, who was easily able to knock in the ball. CSU scored again at 54:09 when Natalie Daniels took a pass from Vidovic, beat the Golden Flash defenders and drilled a shot into the upper left side of the net.
The Golden Flashes prevented the shutout with their lone goal of the day at the 69:18 mark. One of KSU's forwards managed to loft a shot over Kelly Zinkiewich's left shoulder into the net.
"The last 30 minutes was too much of us scrambling to gain possession and get a hold of the game again," Falor said. "Moving forward we need to be more calm on the ball so we can close out games without some slightly panicky defending."
The Vikings outshot Kent State, 16-7. Zinkiewich finished with four saves.
"We proved that we are still very organized and dangerous on set pieces," Falor said. "Kent State had some good runs of possession that we kept in front of us. Defensively, we didn't give up many shots."
