With an average margin of victory of nearly 12 during their three game winning streak, the Owls hadn’t came into Tuesday’s matchup with Wagner College at Geasey Field looking to extend their streak.
After four straight goals by the Seahawks, Temple found itself trailing by one goal with 22:47 remaining in the second half at Geasey Field.
The Owls closed the game with six consecutive goals to defeat the Seahawks 12-7 and earn their fourth straight victory.
Coach Bonnie Rosen said her team used last season’s 10-9 victory against Wagner to prepare for Tuesday’s matchup.
“I think what we knew about Wagner is that they would be definitely coming after us,” Rosen said “We were going to be the team that they had nothing to lose against…we had a little history of having played them last year in a game that was a little close at times too. So I think that there was a lot of emotions coming into this game.”
With the Owls leading 5-3 Seahawks first-year coach Katie Rowan called a timeout with 3:24 remaining in the first half. With a chance to cut the deficit to one coming out of the timeout, sophomore midfielder Lauren Ednie put a shot on net.
Redshirt senior goalkeeper Jaqi Kakalecik made the save for Temple, sparking a transition scoring opportunity. Senior midfielder Megan Tiernan fed a pass to senior attacker Megan Pinkerton, who scored her third straight goal to give the Owls a 6-3 lead.
Following Pinkerton’s goal, the Seahawks quickly responded, scoring two goals in the final 30 seconds of the half. Senior midfielder Shea Gegan, the 2015 Northeast Conference Midfielder of the Year, scored with seven seconds left to cut the Owls’ lead to one at halftime.
“We weren’t quite ready to take the momentum with Jaqi on that save, but it was critical obviously,” coach Bonnie Rosen said. “Every save Jaqi makes gives us a chance to reset things. I think halftime really helped us refocus a little bit. And even though the initial halftime, coming out of halftime wasn’t exactly how we wanted to play, I could tell our team settled down a bit.”
Wagner continued its scoring from the end of the second half. Gegan scored her team-leading eighth goal of the season, and junior defender Amanda Rey scored to give the Seahawks their first and only lead of the game, 7-6.
Then a goal by senior attacker Rachel Schwaab tied the game at seven with 19:20 remaining, sparking a 6-0 run for the Owls to close the game. Senior attacker Kirstie Connor scored two goals and Pinkerton added her fourth goal of the game in the final 16 minutes.
Schwaab’s goal was scored on a free position opportunity, the Owls’ only goal on eight chances.
“It is something we’ve been working on, our eight meters, and I think today our ability to be focused and finish the shots when we’ve been practicing them didn’t show up,” Rosen said. “So we’ll get back and it’s really no different than working on free throws, but free throws but free throws as if you have people flying in on you a little bit to distract you.”
The Owls will play their second road game of the season against University of Maryland Baltimore County, the No. 20 offense in Division I.
“We just have to push the fundamentals of our game again, so we’re really solid and can play the game that needs to be played on the field,” Rosen said. “If we bring our relatively top game, we can be in good shape. They’re definitely the best test of the season for us at this point.”
Evan Easterling can be reached at evan.easterling@temple.edu or on Twitter @Evan_Easterling.
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