UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The No. 4 Penn State women’s soccer team saw five Nittany Lions find the back of the net en route to a 6-0 victory over the Duquesne Dukes Sunday afternoon at Jeffrey Field. Sophomore Frankie Tagilaferri (Colts Neck, N.J.) paced the Nittany Lion offense with her second career two-goal outing.
“It was a great weekend overall on Jeffrey Field, obviously two shutouts,” head coach Erica Dambach said. “An opportunity to score some goals and get some players some minutes today. I thought the reserves did a really nice job of coming off the bench and boosting the energy of the game. Duquesne came in here, they battled. They gave us some challenges that we had to work through and you know they made things tough for us.”
The Nittany Lions (2-0-0) struck first during the 24th minute of play as Emily Ogle (Strongsville, Ohio) converted on a penalty kick for her first goal of the 2018 campaign.
With the first 45 minutes in the books, Penn State outshot Duquesne (0-2-0), 12-2, with Kyra Murphy making five saves for the Dukes.
Tagliaferri opened up the scoring for Penn State in the second half, as she netted a pair of goals within a four minute span to extend Penn State’s lead to 3-0. She scored both of her goals from close range with her first goal of 2018 coming at 58:15 and then she tallied her second goal at 61:35.
Fellow classmate Kerry Abello (Batavia, Ill.) got involved in the scoring as well, as she tallied her first career goal in the 70th minute from the left side of the 18-yard box. Freshman Kelli Beiler (Mount Pleasant Mills, Pa.) picked up her first career point as a Nittany Lion with an assist on the Abello goal.
The final 10 minutes of play saw a pair of Nittany Lion freshmen net their first career goals to secure the 6-0 victory for the Blue & White. In the 83rd minute, Rachel Wasserman (Dallas, Texas) beat Murphy from distance and Kim Dubs (Zurich, Switzerland) fired home a rebound from inside the box in the 88th minute. Redshirt junior Kristin Schnurr (Bristow, Va.) tallied an assist on the goals from Wasserman and Dubs.
In net for Nittany Lions, Amanda Dennis (San Diego, Calif.) recorded one save over the first 73:22 of play, while Sarafina Valenti (Bechtelsville, Pa.) finished out the match between the posts and did not have to make a save.
The No. 4 Nittany Lions close out their season-opening homestand with the No. 2 UCLA Bruins on Saturday, Aug. 25, at Jeffrey Field. The match is slated for a 4 p.m. start live on ESPNU.
