Oct. 26, 2007
Contact: Brian McCann
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Shayna Back and Sylvia Olsby scored goals but Detroit rallied to even the match late in the second half as Cleveland State and Detroit battled through two overtimes before settling for a 2-2 tie on Friday night at Krenzler Field.
The tie moved the Vikings to 4-12-1 overall and 1-5-1 in league play while Detroit went to 3-10-4 overall and 1-3-4 in league action.
"I liked our effort tonight," CSU head coach Derrek Falor said. "Unfortunately, we should have gotten a win tonight.
"We really took the play to them early and ran our offense the way it is supposed to be run. We played the ball wide on the wings and did a nice job finding the open player in the middle."
The Vikings opened the scoring at the 11:52 mark when Shayna Back took a feed from Jennifer Wieand and blasted home a goal from five yards out. The goal, Back's sixth of the season, extended her school record for career goals to 12.
The score held until the opening minutes of the second half when Abbie Kakias fed Sylvia Olsby for another goal in close, extending the Viking lead to 2-0.
The tide began to turn in the match when Detroit got on the scoreboard on an own goal at the 56:26 mark. The play came on a cornerkick with Titan forward Lauren Moss serving the ball just off the endline into the middle of the box. It bounced once before a Viking defender inadvertently deflected it into the net.
"That was a tough goal, but there were so many people packed into the box that it was almost unavoidable," Falor said.
With time winding down in the match, Detroit pressed offensively, sending as many as nine attackers ahead. CSU struggled to counter the attack, failing to maintain possession of the ball long enough to allow the defense to press forward.
"When Detroit pressed, we panicked a little bit and stopped running our offense. When our forwards and midfielders took possession, they played the ball ahead quickly instead of holding the ball and starting forward. That allowed Detroit to be on the continual offensive and our defense could never catch its breath."
The CSU defense finally broke in the 86th minute when Trina Kochanski scored to even the match at 2-2 at force overtime, taking a pass from Emily Kiely and finding the net from 10 yards out on the right wing.
"We've played these kind of matches before and in the past, we would buckled after Detroit scored," Falor said. "It shows how far that we've come as a program that we were able to put things back together and have some solid chances in the final 25 minutes."
Both teams had good scoring opportunities in overtime, but neither team could convert. Abbie Kakias had a great opportunity at the end of each half, a blast towards the end of the first overtime that just missed to the short side and an unlikely breakaway in which a Titan defender caught her before she was able to get a shot off.
Kelly Zinkiewich made five saves in goal for the Vikings while Detroit's Katie Fortenberry made nine saves.
Cleveland State has little time to rebounds from the match, closing the regular season at home against Butler on Sunday (Oct. 28) beginning at 12:00 noon at Krenzler Field.
