The clock was ticking and Temple had to come up with something. Trailing La Salle by two with three minutes left in the regulation, freshman midfielder Morgan Glassford fired a shot past freshman goalkeeper Gabby Antonelli.
It would have been Glassford’s fourth goal in two days and a momentum shifting play to bring the Owls within one.
Instead, the call was reversed after an illegal stick ruling. Junior midfielder Erin McCabe scored one more goal for La Salle 50 seconds later and the Explorers went on to win 7-4.
“It would have been a complete game changer if the one goal counted,” senior attacker Jaymie Tabor said. “It would have been a completely different game with three minutes left and that was a big momentum changer for us.”
After earning their first win of the year against St. Joe’s 24 hours before, the Owls had a rough day at Geasey Field.
The Owls kept themselves in it up until the end, but mistakes, wide shots and bad turnovers cost them.
“Today is a classic learn from a sub-par performance,” coach Bonnie Rosen said. “La Salle came out and did a nice job, but we were our biggest enemy in terms of turnovers and our shooting percentage.”
“I think we’re just learning how to play games,” Rosen said. “We’re just excited to get back out on the field and start working on the big-picture game. It’s a disappointing loss, we certainly didn’t have to be the team that lost today, but we were our worst enemy today.”
La Salle’s junior midfielder Caitlyn Brostrand gave her team a 1-0 lead seven minutes in. Then Temple found itself in a 2-0 hole less than two minutes later when junior midfielder Claire Andrews scored on a free position shot.
It didn’t take long for Temple to even things up, as Tabor and sophomore midfielder Nicole Teirnan scored back-to-back goals 39 seconds apart from each other.
Although they were able to even up the score, the Owls were never able to capture the lead.
Brostrand scored two more goals before the end of the half, completing the hat-trick, recording her eighth goal in just two games and giving La Salle a 4-2 lead.
Freshman midfielder Rachel Barile, after receiving a pass from sophomore midfielder Kirstie Connor, scored her first with 1:02 left to cut the lead back down to one before the end of the half.
Tabor tied it up at four with her second goal of the day nine minutes into the second half, but Claire Andrews tacked on two more goals to complete a hat-trick of her own. Her second ended up being the deciding goal and the third became insurance for La Salle.
Now 1-1, the Owls will hit the road and head to Ithaca, New York to play Cornell on Sunday.
As a team that’s heavy on underclassmen, the Owls are still looking to find their footing.
“We’re definitely young and trying to figure ourselves out,” sophomore midfielder Maddie McTigue said. “But we have a strong senior class, so we look to them to lead us.”
Tabor isn’t worried about the team figuring out either.
“It’s the second game,” Tabor said. “It’ll come.”
Nick Tricome can be reached at nick.tricome@temple.edu or on Twitter @itssnick215.
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