Sept. 4, 2009

Box Score

PHILADELPHIA - Even though its winning streak came to an end Friday night at McCarthy Stadium, La Salle Women's Soccer registered a 0-0 scoreless tie for its fourth straight shutout - a school record - while goalkeeper Melissa Sanger stopped a career-high 13 shots.

Despite the tie, the Explorers are still off to its best start in program history as they are unbeaten in five games (4-0-1). Only two other teams (1997, 2000) have posted four wins in five tries at the start of a year, but they were both 4-1-0.

The 13 saves registered by Sanger is the most by an Explorer goalie since 2005, when Lauren Malizia also made 13 saves against the Mountain Hawks on September 7, however the Explorers dropped the match at Lehigh, 2-0.

Sanger made five saves in each of the first and second halves, while La Salle managed six shots on goal in the same time frame.

Lehigh (1-1-1) held the advantage in shots (19-15) and corner kicks (5-4) in the match, while its net minder Lauren Mains made seven saves to keep the Explorers off the board.

After playing more than 109 minutes, the game almost ended with less than 20 seconds remaining when Traci DePasquale's final shot sailed just high of the upper right 90.

La Salle came up just short of a school record-tying five straight wins, at any point in the season, but the school record for unbeaten streak, at any point, is six games held by the 2004 squad (5-0-1). Also, the only team to post five wins after the first six games was the 2000 team (5-1-0).

In order to reach either of these marks, the Explorers will have to get past Penn on Sunday night at Rhodes Field with a 7 PM start.