Bridgeport Women's Soccer Sees Magical 2022 Season Come To An End In The NCAA Tournament Via A Penalty Kick Shootout Against Franklin Pierce

Rindge, N.H.-It has often been said that penalty kicks in soccer are the toughest way to decide the outcome of any game in sports.  On Friday, the number three-seeded in the region, University of Bridgeport women's soccer team moved onto to Sunday's regional semifinal via PKs against St. Anselm College, and Sunday, the Purple Knights saw their magical 2022 season come to end against the host and second-seeded Franklin Pierce University Ravens, 4-2, in a shootout, after the two teams battled to an epic 2-2 draw after two overtimes of action.  With Sunday's result, the Purple Knights close out 2022 with an impressive 13-3-7 overall record.  The Ravens move onto next week East Regional Final where they will take on top-seeded, the College of St. Rose, with a 15-3-3 record.

As Sunday's match is officially a tie even though Bridgeport's season is now over, UB ends its 2022 campaign on a new team record a 19-match unbeaten streak (12 wins and seven ties) that surpasses the previous school record unbeaten streak of 17 set in 2015, when UB posted an all-time high 21 wins and advanced to the NCAA Division II Semifinals for the first time in program history.

Sunday's contest was truly a slugfest between a pair of regional heavyweights, as the match remained scoreless through 82:11 minutes of play until FPU's Salome Kerguillec scored off a beautiful tic-tac-toe passing play.

After the Ravens opened the scoring on Sunday, the Purple Knights continued to press the issue, and Bridgeport was rewarded with the tying goal 4:03 later when a free kick by junior Vivien Ruettgers (Munich, Germany) was served into the box and found its way into the net off a Franklin Pierce player for an own goal.

With the score tied at 1-1, the match moved into two ten-minute overtime periods, and the Purple Knights would score 5:17 into the first extra period when Kate Thill (So., Goetzingen, Luxembourg) fired home her team-high seventeenth goal of the year when she ran down a beautifully weighted ball from freshman Solune Moll (Bern, Switzerland) through midfield and beat the Ravens' goalkeeper Emilie Fox.

In years past, Thill's goal would have been a game-winner for Bridgeport, but the NCAA has moved on to playing the international brand of soccer where the two full overtime periods must be played versus a winner decided by golden goal.

Franklin Pierce would use that new rule to its advantage when Aino Martikainen found a loose ball near the UB penalty spot with 3:32 remaining in the match and put the ball just inside the right post to tie things at 2-2 and send the tilt into the penalty shootout to see which team would advance in the NCAA Tournament.

During the match, Bridgeport goalkeeper Clara Karlsson (So., Örnsköldsvik, Sweden) made six saves, as she finished the 2022 season with an undefeated record at 13-0-7.

Franklin Pierce went first in the shootout and scored, but Vivien Ruettgers quickly knotted at 1-1 with a laser to the top left corner of the net.

In round two, the Ravens missed their attempt, and junior Samantha St. Pierre (Granby, Conn.) scored to give the Purple Knights a 2-1 lead in the best of five.

In round three, FPU scored and UB missed, so the teams headed to round four tied at 2-2, and a friendly left post would now come into play for the home team.

In round four, Clara Karlsson got her hands on the Franklin Pierce shot attempt which then hit the post and deflected back off her and across the goal line.

Looking to tie things up in the shootout at 3-3, UB standout Angelina LoFranco (So., Greenacres, Fla,) stepped up to the spot only to see her confident strike hit that same left post but stay on the other side of the goal line.

Leading 3-2 heading into the fifth round, the Ravens closed things out by converting on their shot to take the shootout, 4-2.