Sept. 25, 2009
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - The ninth-ranked Santa Clara women's soccer team scored its eighth victory of the year, dropping Cal State Fullerton 1-0 tonight at Buck Shaw Stadium. Junior Anessa Patton earned her first game-winner of the year in the first half to put the Broncos on top.
The match was very lopsided, with Santa Clara doing most of the attacking and outshooting the Titans 16-2. Fullerton's only attempt on goal came just 40 seconds into the game, an easy save for sophomore goalkeeper Bianca Henninger.
Patton scored her third goal of the season in the 18th minute of play. The Fresno, Calif. native and freshman Amanda Webster utilized a give-and-go at the top of the box to beat the defense, and Patton neatly tucked the ball into the low corner of the net beating goalkeeper Jordan-Michelle Santos to her left.
Freshman Meleana Shim, had another great chance for the Broncos, combining with fellow rookie Olivia Klei who slipped in a ball behind the Titan defense for Shim. Shim tried to beat Santos low, but the netminder came up with the save preventing the two goal lead.
In the 60th minute, Webster nearly scored one of her own to put Santa Clara up by another goal, but her close-range shot was snuffed by a charging Santos.
At 70:57, Santos stopped a point-blank attempt from Patton, and the resulting rebound went to sophomore Jenny LaPonte. LaPonte's had the whole goal open and sent the ball on net, but it was deflected by a recovering defender, hit the post and bounced out for a corner kick.
On the following corner kick, redshirt senior Jordan Angeli got her head on the cross, but a defender headed the attempt out of danger.
Despite all the chances for the Broncos, one goal was all it took to seal the win. The Santa Clara defense and Henninger earned the team's fifth shutout of the year with only one save.
"I think one of the things we did a nice job of tonight was focusing on keeping the ball," said head coach Jerry Smith. "We want to have sustained attacks that eventually lead to a scoring chance, and that last part [scoring chances] was where I was disappointed. I thought we controlled the ball well enough, but not enough of our possessions resulted in a dangerous opportunity. We had, I don't know, six or seven dangerous chances and to get one goal was disappointing. But I was happy with how we controlled the game, but more chances and more goals is what we need to get out of a game like this."
Santa Clara (8-2-0) returns to Buck Shaw on Sunday to face Southern California at 1 p.m.
