Senior midfielder Louise Delaney had a smile on her face when reflecting on a case of déjà vu.
Delaney scored Point Park’s lone goal in a 2-1 Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (KIAC) tournament final loss to Asbury University (Ky.) last season. Her second half goal Saturday resulted in a 2-1 overtime victory against the same Asbury on her senior day.
“[The emotional aspect] was hard, especially going against a team we lost to last year in the conference final, but we watched them against Carlow the other day and learned from our mistakes last year,” Delaney said. “We got the win, so everyone’s very happy.”
After a 2-7 start to its season, the Point Park women’s soccer team has won four straight games and is now second in the KIAC behind Rio Grande.
Something that was a source of pride for freshman midfielder/forward Audra Lewis was the team’s shutout streak. From the 54th minute of the team’s Sept. 20 loss against Rio Grande until the 22nd minute of the Asbury victory Saturday, the team did not surrender a goal. The time elapsed during this streak was over 339 minutes of game action.
“I wouldn’t trade this season for anything,” Lewis said. “The team is working really well together.”
The week started with a double overtime victory against Waynesburg University when sophomore midfielder Erin Gilmartin scored her second goal of the season in the 100th minute.
“We came out together as a team in the second overtime and tried to push the ball up the field,” Gilmartin said. “Audra [Lewis] just deflected off a cross and I followed it up.”
The winning streak continued against Cincinnati Christian (Oh). Prior to this game, Point Park had two home goals on the season; but it won the contest 5-0 for its first KIAC victory of the season.
Lewis scored two goals to bring her total to a team leading seven. Also scoring in the game were senior midfieler/forward Megan Kuntz, sophomore midfielder Simone Kiebler, who each had their first goal of the season and junior midfielder Ula Koczkodaj, her second.
“Working together was a big thing,” said Lewis. “Our passes and through balls were really good. My teammates looked to find my feet and they did and I just distributed to our outside midfielders.”
This led to the game against Asbury. Point Park outshot Asbury 9-4 in the first half but trailed after Asbury’s Meredith Ury shot a goal to the top of the net. Megan Kuntz said that despite this, the Pioneers remained calm.
“Typically your first reaction is to get down but we picked it up and knew right away that we had to come back and play even harder,” Kuntz said.
In the second half, Louise Delaney took a throw in from senior defender Amanda Mikolay and established position before firing a shot that just got under the top post for her second goal of the season. This tied the game at one.
“I like those outside of the box shots and I’m happy it went in,” Delaney said. “I wasn’t too sure when I kicked it.”
The score remained deadlocked until Kuntz scored with 12 second remaining before a second overtime. On the play, sophomore forward Beth Millican sent a throw in to Gilmartin who attempted to pass to Lewis. Instead, the ball went to an Asbury defender who did not get a proper foot on it. The ball deflected to Kuntz, who was close to the goal, and put away the shot for her second goal of the season to end the game.
“I think it was the buildup of the team from the back all the way up,” Kuntz said. “I’m not sure how the ball got to me, I was open. It was an amazing finish.”
Point Park has two games coming up on its next road trip. The first is a conference game Sunday at Midway College (Ky.). It will wrap up the trip at Georgetown College (Ky.) Monday.
Delaney believes the objective for the week is fairly straightforward.
“To continue winning,” Delaney said. “The way that we’re playing is a lot better than we were at the beginning.”
