Owls remain undefeated

With 77 minutes remaining and the score tied, Paula Jurewicz initiated play with a throw in.

The pass reached the foot of senior midfielder Kelly Farrell, who laid the ball off to Gina DiTaranto. The redshirt junior angled the ball past the keeper, scoring the game-winning goal for the Owls in their 2-1 win against Rider University Tuesday,

“Paula [Jurewicz] made an awesome throw in to Kelly [Farrell] and I actually was underneath her,” said DiTaranto. “She laid it off to me and I took a touch around the defender and hit it back post.”

After Farrell scored the game’s first goal in the 40th minute, the Owls (4-0) surrendered their first goal of the season —a free kick from Rider’s Emily Schmitt. It was the first goal the team allowed in 334 minutes of play and the first goal senior goalkeeper Shauni Kerkhoff allowed in 283 minutes of action this season.

“Shutout streaks are great, but it also goes to your defense so I feel bad that I let them down,” Kerkhoff said. “Hopefully we’ll get many more shutouts to come this year. But it’s definitely a good nod to the start of the season.”

Kerkhoff, the American Athletic Conference Preseason Goalkeeper of the Year, said she was able to forget about surrendering her first goal of the year quickly.

“I usually take about 30 seconds,” Kerkhoff said. “I’m like silent for the first 30 seconds, you know, I got to take it all in. From then on, after the kickoff, it’s back into game mode…0-0 after every goal is how you should act.”

As a team, the Owls outshot Rider 24-4, totaled seven more shots on goal and had seven corner kicks compared to Rider’s one.

“It was definitely a hard day for us,” Kerkhoff said. “We have to have mistakes under our belt to get better. So I think off of this win there’s a lot of stuff we can fix and be ready for [the University of Pennsylvania]. So I’m glad that we know what we need to fix, and we can do that and be ready.”

In the team’s four wins to start the season, the Owls have outshot their opponents 72-19 and outscored them 14-1.

Last season, Temple won a program record seven-consecutive games to start the season.

Gregory Van Buskirk can be reached at greg.van.buskirk@temple.edu.