UMass Boston blanks PSU woman's soccer 1-0 in regular season finale

The Plymouth State Women's Soccer team fell to UMass Boston in their regular season finale Sat., Nov. 1 at the Clark Athletic Center Field in Boston.  With the loss, the Plymouth ladies finished the regular season with an overall record of 5-8-4 with a Little East Conference record of 1-5-1.  UMass Boston improved to 7-10-2 with a LEC record of 3-3-1.

UMB junior Kristi Morales scored the only goal of the afternoon when she put one by PSU first-year goalie student Angelina LaBroad.  Although LaBroad gave up one goal, she was solid the rest of the afternoon by stopping five UMB shots.  PSU head coach Gene Smith was pleased with the play of his first-year goalie, "Angelina had a very strong game in net despite giving up an early goal," said Smith, "She saved us a few times when we were pushing numbers up the field to try to get the tying goal."  UMB sophomore goalie Ashley McRoberts also had a stellar day by stopping 11 shots, while pitching a shutout.

Although this game will go down as a loss for PSU in the standings, Coach Smith believed his Panthers dominated the game, "We dominated most of the game and the statistics prove that fact.  However, statistics mean very little when you can not put the ball in the back of the net," said Smith, "We moved the ball very well at times but struggled finding the final pass.  We had multiple opportunities but mental mistakes cost us dearly in this match...curse of a young team."  PSU also had a shot advantage of 17-12 on the day.

PSU will move on to play Keene State College on Nov. 4 in a rematch of a regular season game that saw Keene State win by a score of 4-0.  KSC is 14-6 on the season with a 5-2 conference record.  The Owls of Keene State have won five of their last seven games although they lost their regular season finale to Western Connecticut State by a score of 2-0.  

Keene has taken a total of almost 100 more shots than their opponents and has scored twice as many goals as their opponents this season.  The Owls' defense has been stellar, allowing only 1.35 goals a game to their opponents.  The Owls' offense is lead by Katie Bradford who has netted 14 goals this season.  KSC goalie Samantha Hirsh has only allowed 18 goals this season while having 65 saves.  KSC tends to be a second half team; they have scored 33 of their 54 goals in the second half of games this season.

 UMass Boston will move on to play their rivals from UMass Dartmouth in the quarterfinals on Tues., Nov. 4.