Sept. 9, 2001
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The Purdue women's soccer team finished its West Coast trip with a second win at Portland State on Sunday. The Boilermakers defeated the Vikings 3-1, while moving to 3-1 on the season, as well.
"Today, we were able to go into a tough playing environment and come away with a win, which is always good," said Purdue head coach Rob Klatte. "We were definitely challenged, playing on a field turf surface that was only 65 yards wide. Playing on a surface that you don't train on, always alters your game and I thought that we did a good job handling the situation. With the exception of one defensive mistake, we were stellar in the backfield and gave them very few true opportunities to score. At their goal, we did an excellent job of creating and scoring off great shots for some outstanding goals."
The Boilermakers went in and scored quickly at the 15:46 mark when sophomore forward Courtney Coppedge headed the ball and redirected a cross from the left side from freshman forward Lauren Sesselmann. The goal marked Coppedge's third of the year, while Sesselmann tallied her third assist of the season.
Then in the 28th minute, sophomore forward Annette Kent popped the ball to freshman forward Meghan Dybvig on the right side. On a cross from the right side, Dybvig found sophomore defender Krystal Pepper open in the middle for her first goal of the year.
Only two minutes into the new half, Portland State's Tara Bennnion was able to sneak in behind the Boilermaker defense and dropped her first goal of the season into the right corner of the goal.
Despite allowing the Portland State goal, the Boilermakers were fairly confident. But the Vikings became frustrated with Purdue's relentless attacks and tallied three yellow cards and a red card in a 20-minutes time span.
At 69:11, Coppedge broke away and made another drive into the box. She swung in behind the PSU goalkeeper and then was taken out by the keeper with an unprofessional foul.
On a controversial call, the referee did not allow the penalty kick, but did red card the keeper and gave the Boilermakers a free kick outside of the box.
Purdue was unable to convert on the free kick, but Coppedge found another way to tally her revenge as she scored her fourth goal of the year at 70:53 with another header that redirected a pass from junior midfielder Chrissy Creamer.
Continuing to solidify their front line, the Boilermakers out-shot the Vikings 25-9 and out-cornered them 4-2.
In the goal for Purdue, senior Elizabeth Boldt tallied her fourth start of the year and improved her record to 2-1-0 with three saves. Her goals-against average currently stands at 1.00.
The Boilermakers will return to the field when they host Oakland on Friday, Sept. 14 at the Varsity Soccer Complex at 4 p.m. They will then hit the road on Sunday for their final game before the Big Ten Conference season starts. Purdue will travel to Morgantown, W.Va. to take on the Mountaineers of West Virginia.
- P -