Lehigh University
No. 2 Navy
Lehigh's season comes to an end in semifinals
11/3/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
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LEWISBURG,
An emotional Manny Oudin expressed his thoughts following the game. “I thought we played a great game, we played very well here tonight. We played Navy even for the majority of the first half and for a good portion of the second half.” He continued, “They’re a very good team and did the things they needed to do to win, but I could not be any prouder of the effort our girls gave out here.” He concluded, “I’m very proud of our seniors, and I just shared with them, that they took this program from having gone to the (Patriot League) tournament just once, to now having made it in each of the past three seasons. They have showed a strong commitment and deserve everything that they have gotten during their careers.”
The first half featured very little offense with only six total shots between the teams. Lehigh unleashed five of those shots, but Navy keeper Lizzie Barnes sent back each of the Mountain Hawks chances. Seniors Gina Lewandowski and Daniela Molina led the Brown and White with two shots in the first 45 minutes, while classmate Lauren Calabrese had the other one. There were 12 total fouls in the half, and Lehigh had three corner kicks to the Midshipmen’s two.
In the second half, the teams again were trying to find their rhythm on offense, but both defenses were up to the challenge. Navy finally broke the scoreless streak in the 62nd minute when Shelly Moeller headed in a pass from Cassie Barbaresi to make the score 1-0 Mids. Lehigh had a few chances as the game wore on, but was unable to get deep enough into Navy’s end of the field to score. Kristen Laraway then put the finishing touches on the victory for Navy with a shot from the far right side that flew into the top left corner of the goal in the 72nd minute.
Navy out shot Lehigh 11-10 on the evening and had five corner kicks to the Mountain Hawks’ three. Julie Kafka finished with two saves on the evening for the Brown and White, while Barnes stopped six Lehigh shots.
Lehigh’s senior class leaves Lehigh with 43 total victories, three Patriot League Tournament appearances, one Patriot League Championship game appearance, and one Patriot League regular season co-championship.
