After losing to Ohio U., Marshall might have thought they were playing at ‘Ping’ Center rather than Chessa Field.
The Thundering Herd drilled four shots off the crossbar, but ‘Cats’ sophomore midfielder Cathryn Rogers hit the back of the net on a penalty kick to propel the Bobcats to a 1-0 victory yesterday at Chessa Field.
With about nine minutes to play, junior forward Laura Dieter gathered the ball and streaked down the right side of the field. She passed the ball into the box, where Kelsey Pichel and Jackie Hanson helped it along to Rogers, who fired a shot off the hand of Herd defender Meghan Wetzel.
The Bobcats were immediately awarded a penalty kick, and Wetzel was given a yellow card. Rogers confidently walked into the penalty area to take the kick.
“In that situation, you want a player to step up and say, ‘I’m going to take it’,” coach Stacy Strauss said. “She did, and she did a good job with it.”
Rogers put the ball into the wide-open right side of the net as Marshall goalkeeper Lindsey Kerns dove the other direction.
“That’s just where I always go,” Rogers said. “I think (it’s my) comfort zone.”
Marshall had plenty of chances to take a lead earlier in the half. The Herd fired 10 shots at the goal – including eight in the second half – and four on target. Freshman goalkeeper Mattie Liston made four saves to earn her second career shutout.
On one play, Liston tipped the ball into the crossbar, one of the four shots that fired off the horizontal pipe, all in the second half.
“It’s funny. It was a little bit unlucky on their part,” Strauss said. “That being said, from my angle I felt like Mattie had all of them covered. Had it dipped, she would have saved it.”
After a lackluster first half that featured only two shots on goal, the teams combined for seven shots on net and 10 corner kicks in the second half. The referee administered two players yellow cards in the fast-paced, aggressive half.
“We were organized defensively. We took away their threatening players, which is what we were intending to do,” Strauss said. “We played gutsy and physical and earned the win.”