April 4, 2011

PHILADELPHIA, PA - Soccer season is still months away, but the La Salle women are hard at work preparing for the fall as they competed in their first two spring exhibition matches over the weekend against Lehigh and Long Island University. 

Both matches were played on Saturday at Lehigh University, first up was a contest against the host Mountain Hawks that ended in a 1-0 La Salle victory. 

The Explorers received the only goal of the game off a penalty kick midway through the second half from Courtney Niemiec, who was taken down in the box after a wonderful through ball from Erin Brennan. 

Melissa Sanger started in net for La Salle and had a brilliant performance in the shutout victory. 

The game was the first against former La Salle assistant coach Amy Hough, who took an assistant position at Lehigh in February.  La Salle and Lehigh will meet again during the regular season. 

In game two, the Explorers received another stellar defensive performance and defeated Long Island University 1-0.  

"After a copule of months of training, it was great to finally have our girls play against someone other than themselves," said head coach Paul Royal. "We ended up experimenting with a new system of play, so we weren't sure how it would play out, however the girls really grasped a lot of the concepts and it showed in both results."

"Morgan's goal was first class," said Royal.  "She bent her run in behind the LIU defense and hit a brilliant volley over the keeper's head and just under the crossbar."

The coaching staff was also pleased wtih the overall team performance from the weekend and looks forward to continuing the spring season next week. 

"Overall, Dan [Manella], Ally [Kenney] and I were very pleased with the performances from the weekend," Royal added.  "We're very excited to see an increased speed of play along with a greater commitment to the defensive side of the ball.  I thought we had some special performances from Amanda Komarnicki, who was playing a new position for the first time.  We also received stellar defensive perfomances from Diana Allen, Kerri Aiken, Ashley Chilcoat and Dominique Ponente."

La Salle will continue the spring schedule on Thursday, April 7 with the first of two matches against Saint Joseph's.  Thursday's contest against the Hawks will be held at Finnesey Field with the return match up to be held a week later, on April 14, at McCarthy Stadium.  

Below is the women's soccer spring schedule in its entirety: 

*Spring format vs. Saint Joseph's will be run like the UEFA Champions League games with the winner to be determined by goal differential and/or away goals scored.