Seminoles Oust BC Women

Eagles Fall, 1-0, in Sweet 16

Novemeber 23, 2008

The Boston College women’s soccer team NCAA tournament run ended in the Sweet 16 with a 1-0 loss to Florida State at the Seminole Soccer Complex in Tallahassee, Fla. Saturday afternoon.

The Eagles finish the season at 15-6-2, while FSU improved to 16-2-3 and will play at Notre Dame next weekend.

“We thought that it would be very similar to this, that they might have the ball a little more but we might, with our athleticism, be able to turn over some good opportunities if we could high press their backs,” said BC coach Alison Kulik. “We went in with the approach to put some pressure on their back line. I thought we did and that created a couple of opportunities but I think Florida State had more chances than we did. And they capitalized on one, as we all know.’’

Boston College surrendered the only goal of the game at the 64:32 mark. After a corner kick, FSU’s Sarah Wagenfur punched the ball back into the box. Wagenfur’s ball bounced in the box and Tori Huster deflected the ball into the goal over BC’s goalkeeper Jillian Mastroianni.

The Eagles’ best scoring chance in the first half came 26 minutes in when Brooke Knowlton slipped the ball into the box for an on-coming Stephanie Wirth. The freshman forward slid in an attempt to push the ball by a diving FSU goalkeeper Kate Milstead about eight yards from the goal. The Seminoles keeper deflected the ball enough to keep the game knotted at 0-0.

With just under 20 minutes to play in the half, Mastroianni kept the game even when she deflected a Tiffany McCarty offering over the crossbar. FSU out-shot BC, 12-5, in the first half.

Florida State had two chances at the start of the half but neither developed into a threat. The Seminoles’ goal came after BC failed to clear the first corner kick. On the second attempt, FSU gathered up a cleared ball to the right of Mastroianni and sent the ball back into a crowded box. Huster ran in from the top of the area to give FSU the 1-0 lead.

Just three minutes later, Boston College applied some pressure when it earned two corner kicks in a row. On the first corner, junior Kelly Henderson’s header went wide. On the second corner kick, Henderson’s shot was blocked by a defender in front of the goal. The ball deflected off a number of players and finally cleared away from the goal area.

Mastroianni came up big for BC with just under 13 minutes to play. The freshman made a diving save off a deflection off the foot of Katrin Schmidt from seven yards out. She finished the day with nine saves, tying her career-high.

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