BOCA RATON, Fla. – (Oct. 25, 2019) – The Florida Atlantic University women’s soccer utilized a successful penalty kick from Pernille Velta, and the Owl defense and goalkeeper Cassidy Wasdin turned in a clean sheet behind the redshirt freshman’s career-best seven saves. With the 1-0 win on Friday night, the Owls leapfrogged the Mean Green in the Conference USA standings to move into third place.
The Turning Point:
FAU (12-3-1, 6-1-1 C-USA) came out hot and heavy after the halftime break, and Mary O’Hara drew a foul in the box to bring up the PK opportunity. Senior striker Velta beat the NT (11-5-0, 6-2-0 C-USA) keeper right to put the Owls on the scoreboard in the 56th minute.
The Finish:
The Mean Green didn’t go away, with six shots the remainder of the match. Three were saved, two by Wasdin, and one key shot that was turned away came in a sequence just after he goal – in the 66th, Luisa Daikeler was in the right spot near the goal line to clear it for a team save. Wasdin’s last save came with just under two minutes left, and the Owls were able to dribble out the clock for a big league win.
Notables:
· Velta made good on the Owls’ first PK attempt of the year, her sixth goal in 2019 and 15th of her career
· Wasdin turned in her fourth full clean sheet in the Owls’ fifth shutout this season
· Seven Owls in total did not come off the pitch: Wasdin, the entire backline of Daikeler, Alex Maxson, Carolynn Wotring and Hailey Landrus, and midfielders O’Hara and Jessica Monteiro
· FAU had one less shot in the match than the Mean Green, 14-13, but had a 9-2 corner kick advantage
· The team reached the 12-win mark for the fourth time in the last five seasons, and earned program win No. 250 all-time
Quotable:
“For ‘P’ (Pernille Velta), a senior, to step up and be calm and cool and collected on the PK, we’ve been very good at just taking it game-by-game and staying in the moment,” said head coach Patrick Baker. “It wasn’t our best soccer, but a lot of that has to do with the pressure that North Texas puts on you … at the conclusion of 90, we managed to find one and keep a clean sheet.”
“It’s all really surreal for us,” said senior forward Elisha Holmes. “I know this has been one of the matches that we’ve looked forward the most to, out of the whole year. I think the atmosphere was amazing, the crowd was amazing, and overall our team had a lot of passion.”
Full Video with Coach Baker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wOMqGXBbBk
Full Video with Elisha Holmes:
What’s Next:
The Owls will host Rice on Sunday, another team just ahead of them in the C-USA standings, at 6-0-2 (for 20 points compared to FAU’s 19). The match will kick off at 1 p.m. from FAU Soccer Stadium.
– FAUSports.com –
Florida Atlantic University Athletics:
FAU Athletics is comprised of 21 intercollegiate teams involving 450 student-athletes that compete in baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, indoor and outdoor track, volleyball, beach volleyball, cheer and dance. The Owls are a NCAA Division I-A (FBS) institution and compete in Conference USA and the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (CCSA) (beach volleyball, men’s swimming). The Owls have been playing football since 2001 and are a perfect 3-0 in bowl games, the most recent being a 50-3 victory over Akron in the 2017 Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl. The dance team finished its 2014 season No. 8, nationally. FAU cheer won a national championship in 2016.
About Florida Atlantic University:
Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University, with an annual economic impact of $6.3 billion, serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students at sites throughout its six county service region in southeast Florida. FAU’s world-class teaching and research faculty serves students through 10 colleges: the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, the College of Business, the College for Design and Social Inquiry, the College of Education, the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the Graduate College, the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College, the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. FAU is ranked as a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The University is placing special focus on the rapid development of critical areas that form the basis of its strategic plan: Healthy aging, biotech, coastal and marine issues, neuroscience, regenerative medicine, informatics, lifespan and the environment. These areas provide opportunities for faculty and students to build upon FAU’s existing strengths in research and scholarship. For more information, visit www.fau.edu.
