Oct. 4, 2015
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BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. -- The Penn State women's soccer team tallied its fifth shutout of the season as the Nittany Lions recorded a 3-0 victory over the Northwestern Wildcats Sunday afternoon at Toyota Park. Three Nittany Lions scored in the match.
Penn State improves to 8-2-2 (3-1-1) in 2015, while the Wildcats fall to 9-2-2 (3-1-1) on the year.
Mallory Weber (Novi, Mich.) continued her stellar senior season Sunday afternoon as she scored in the ninth minute to give the Nittany Lions the early 1-0 lead. Emily Ogle (Strongsville, Ohio) was credited with her second assist of the season on the goal.
Weber's goal Sunday is the sixth of the 2015 campaign and the 34th of her career. She now moves into a tie for 10th all-time at Penn State with Christine Nairn '12.
The Nittany Lions added to the lead in the 27th minute off of Raquel Rodriguez (San Jose, Costa Rica) 25-yard strike.
Eight seconds after the Rodriguez goal, senior goalkeeper Britt Eckerstrom (Germantown, Md.) made her first save of the match.
At the break, Penn State led Northwestern 2-0, and outshot the opposition by a mark of 6-1.
During the second half of play the Wildcats were looking to get on the board, but the Nittany Lion defense limited the Northwestern offense to two shot attempts in the final 45 minutes of action.
Eckerstrom recorded her second, and final, save of the afternoon in the 86th minute on Nandi Mehta's second shot of the match.
Two minutes later, Northwestern tallied its final shot attempt of the contest, but was blocked by the Nittany Lion defense.
In the closing minutes of play, freshman Alina Ortega-Jurado (Wetzlar, Germany) netted her first career goal as a Nittany Lion. The Northwestern keeper misplayed the ball and Ortega-Jurado fired a shot home from 20 yards out over the keeper's head. Ortega-Jurado gave the Nittany Lions the 3-0 lead with a little over a minute left in the match.
Prior to today's match, the Northwestern defense only allowed four goals in 12 matches.
The Penn State defense held the Northwestern offense to three shot attempts, which is a season-low for a Nittany Lion opponent in 2015.
The Nittany Lions return home to Jeffrey Field, as they host Maryland at 7 p.m., on Thursday, Oct. 8 and Indiana at 1 p.m., on Sunday, Oct. 11. Both matches will be aired on BTN Plus on BTN2Go.