Game Story: Temple University Vs. Old Dominion

PHILADELPHIA – In a BIG EAST rivalry game between the Temple Owls and the nationally ranked Old Dominion Monarchs, the Owls edged the Monarchs 2-1 on Friday afternoon in overtime, from a game winning goal scored by Rachael Mueller. It was Mueller’s third game winning goal this season. In the long time rivalry between these two teams, the Owls are 4-20-1 against the Monarchs, but the Owls have won the last three contests. Temple has also won four straight this season. This game was a hard fought one, with Temple having one of its’ best games of the season defensively. The owls were outshot 12 to four (shots on goal), and only earned four penalty corners to the 12 earned by the Monarchs. Being out chanced by three times forced the Owls to be spectacular on defense to escape with a win. The effort began on the last line of defense with Freshman Maddie Lilliock, “[Lilliock] is playing awesome, I’m really proud of her, she worked really hard in preseason, coming in as a freshman, and she communicates really well from behind. I can’t even tell she’s a freshman, she’s really stepped up to the plate and has done a very good job,” said one of Lilliock’s backfield teammates Ali Meszaros. The Owls after getting on the board first, from the first goal of the season by Sarah Keer, held the lead for nearly 15 minutes before the game was eventually tied by a goal scored by Chrissy Horn off a defensive turnover. The rest of the first half and the entire second half was a stalemate as neither team could generate much offense. When overtime began, the stalemate quickly came to an end as seven on seven play began. With more space to operate the Owls were able to get the ball deep into Monarchs territory and led to the eventual overtime goal. The defense from the Owls kept them in the game to give them the opportunity to upset a nationally ranked Old Dominion team. The Owls confidence in their defense has been a season long story. “Every game that we face our plan is 1v1 defense, and we like to defend with numbers as well as vice versa with the attack, so yes, that was the plan in all games,” said Rachael Mueller. Temple’s head coach Mary Beth Freeman, an Old Dominion graduate, reinforced the point of trusting their defense to allow the counter attack to be effective. While it was not the plan to only have four shots on goal recorded in just over 76 minutes of play, it is not about how many chances one team gets to score, but what they do with those scoring chances. “I think that we look back, ODU played a well fought game, but I think we were just as fortunate, and we were better with our possessions,” Mueller noted just after scoring the game winning goal, on her only shot of the contest. Coach Freeman praised her team’s ability to continue to fight despite being beaten in time of possession and scoring chances. “I think it was a great team win today. We’ve been talking a lot about how collectively as a unit with attack and defense, you have to be able to do it together, and that one person is going to be the standout somehow, and we were able to play good combination today.” The Owls move to 5-8 on the season, and get to an even 2-2 in conference games. The Owls head to Penn this Sunday and look to extend their win streak to five.