Oct. 26, 2008
Box Score
EVANSTON, Ill. -- Playing its final regular season road contest and its 10th ranked opponent in 13 games, Northwestern came up with its best performance of the season but lost a thrilling 4-3 decision in overtime at No. 11 Louisville. Junior Courtney Plaster-Strange, a Louisville native, scored twice while senior goalkeeper Emily Kyle (San Francisco, Calif./San Francisco University H.S.) matched her season high with 12 saves in the face of 34 total shots by Louisville.
The loss drops NU to 6-12 overall while Louisville, who has been ranked No. 11 in the NFHCA Coaches' poll for the past six weeks, improved to 12-5.
“This was a tremendous effort by our team and I'm really proud of the way we came out and competed against a great Louisville team today,” said head coach Kelly McCollum. “It's unfortunate to not get the win but I thought we showed what we can do when we play our game for an entire 70 minutes.”
Northwestern returns to Evanston at noon on Saturday for its regular season finale and Senior Day celebrations when it hosts Indiana at Lakeside Field.
Louisville managed to jump out to a 1-0 lead 14 minutes into the game when Tuli Lim deflected in a shot by teammate Kayla May. But Northwestern continued to battle and responded with a goal 12 minutes later. Junior Elizabeth Dobbs (Wellesley, Mass./St. Ignatius (San Francisco)) fired home a rebound off a shot by senior Alexandra Quinn (Watertown, Mass./Watertown) for her ninth goal of 2008.
NU surged ahead just minutes after the halftime break when junior Courtney Plaster-Strange (Louisville, Ky,/Kentucky Country Day) tipped in a penalty corner shot by classmate Stephanie Fortson (Lehighton, Pa./Lehighton) to put the 'Cats up, 2-1.
After Lim knotted the score at two, Plaster-Strange came up with another big play in her homecoming when she hammered home a shot from the middle of the circle with nine minutes left. It was Plaster-Strange's first multi-goal game of the year and third such game of her career.
Northwestern finished with eight shots on goal while the Cardinals recorded 16.
Louisville managed to push across the tying goal in the 67th minute after a scramble in front of the net to send the game to overtime. It was Northwestern's first overtime contest of the year.
The sudden-death overtime lasted 13 minutes before Nicole Youman scored off a penalty corner set piece to win the game for Louisville.