Beaver Wins Last Game of Season Against Penn State Greater Allegheny

By: Evan Pinchot 

New Brighton, Pa -- Penn State Beaver's women's soccer team played their last game of the season against Penn State Greater Allegheny. Beaver comes into this one needing to take home a win in order to secure their third place spot in the PSUAC standings. The team faces off against a Greater Allegnehy team that they have already beaten once this year and hope to do the same in this one. This game is also Beaver's senior day, and the team honored their seniors before the game, including special thanks to their captain, Jessica Spina. 

The first half started off with Beaver forcing the ball into Greater Allegheny's half of the field for the first 30 minutes of play. In that time Beaver barely let the ball up, contolling the tempo of the game entirely. During the first 20 minutes of play Beaver was able to score three goals from three different players, giving them a 3-0 lead. As play went on, Greater Allegheny began to take the ball away more and had a few good chances of their own. However, Beaver was able to stop every shot from Greater Allegheny due to great play in net by Sophomore Brittany Zahn, and thanks to another Beaver goal by Sophomore Marissa Bucklen, Beaver went into halftime with a 4-0 lead. 

The second half of play was a lot less one sided, as Beaver did not have the same kind of dominance that they had in the first half of the game. This half of play was showed two teams that looked much more evenly matched, and neither team really seemed to have an advantage offensively. In the 57th minute, the first goal of the half was scored by Beaver's Senior Captain, Jessica Spina. That goal put Beaver up 5-0, and that seemed to put some more life in the Greater Allegheny team that hadn't been there all game. Greater Allegheny went on a hard attack, trying to score desperately, and even with the two goals that they scored in the last 30 minutes, they still ended up losing this one to Beaver by a final score of 5-2. 

Beaver's girls end up playing a great game against Greater Allegheny, as with this win in their last game of the season they secured the third place spot in the PSUAC standings. The team finishes the year out with an 8-8 overall record, and a 6-4 conference record. The team scored five goals in their game against Greater Allegheny, and of the five different players to score them Senior Jessica Spina's goal was the icing on the cake, as it was her last home game in a Beaver uniform. The goal was Spina's 18th on the year as she led the team in both points, with 45, and goals. She was followed closely behind in both categories by Freshman Lauren Banks, with 13 goals and 31 points, and Sophomore Bukuru Edisa, with 10 goals and 24 points in the regular season. Now with their regular season play finished the girls will begin their PSUAC playoff run. Their first game will be on Saturday, October 29 at Penn State Schuylkill. Game time is still to be announced.