Facing University of Maryland Baltimore County, the No. 16 offense in Division I with 13.75 goals per game, and having a Top-25 offense themselves, the Owls expected a high-scoring game Saturday.
“We knew that UMBC’s scoring power was very strong, and we were prepared to have to deal with a lot of scoring potentially against us and to stay patient with that defensively,” coach Bonnie Rosen said. “We knew our offense would need to do their job of putting balls in the net.”
The Owls had the better offense at UMBC Stadium, defeating the Retrievers 19-9 to earn their fifth straight win. Temple got three hat-trick performances from three seniors in the team’s first 19-goal game since a 19-3 victory against Cincinnati in April 2014.
Attacker Brenda McDermott paced the Owls, scoring five consecutive goals to increase the Owls’ lead from 3-1 to 8-1 in the first half and had an assist in the second half. Midfielder Megan Tiernan also contributed six points with three goals and three assists. Baltimore native Rachel Schwaab scored a hat-trick in the first half on the way to a four-goal day.
Winning draw controls was important for the Owls in the victory. The Retrievers tallied 13.75 draw controls per game coming into play, ranked No. 22 in Division I.
Temple won 11-of-15 draw controls in the first half to help build a seven-goal lead. UMBC scored three consecutive goals, including sophomore attacker Carolyn Jamison’s goal with 36 seconds left in the half, to cut the deficit to a manageable 9-5.
The Owls continued their success on the draw in the second half, winning 4-of-5 draws to start the period. Junior midfielder Morgan Glassford had a career-high nine draw controls to go along with two goals.
“The momentum was really set by our ability to come up with the draw controls,” Rosen said. “Summer [Jaros] to Morgan off the draw has been strong for us all year and it continued to do that. Just even creating those possession opportunities after goals I think made it a little hard for UMBC to get on a roll when they did score a goal.”
Despite the 20-9 advantage in draw controls, Temple did not have a significant advantage in shots, outshooting the Retrievers 34-30. Redshirt-senior goalkeeper Jaqi Kakalecik’s nine saves, which tied her season-high against University of Louisville on Feb. 12, helped the defensive effort.
“We slid well to double and we really limited our fouling which is really important … overall, it was just a really strong good defensive effort,” Rosen said. “Nothing special, just really solid, individual and team defense.”
The Owls begin a four-game homestand Wed. against a Rutgers University team that has lost five straight games.
Evan Easterling can be reached at evan.easterling@temple.edu or on Twitter @Evan_Easterling.
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