Staten Island, NY | The College of Staten Island Women’s Soccer team hosted their home-opener at the CSI Soccer Complex this afternoon and defeated the Wildcats of Penn College by a final score of 3-2. The Dolphins struck early as Samantha LaValle registered a pair of early goals, one in the third minute and another in the sixth. This gave the Dolphins an early 2-0 advantage that they would hold until halftime. An early second-half goal by the Wildcats quickly made it 2-1 before Jordan Yagos extended the CSI lead back to two with her first of the season. A late Wildcats goal would cut the lead to a single goal once again, but the Dolphins would hold on for the final eight minutes to earn the 3-2 victory. The win gets CSI off to a 1-0 start and drops Penn College to 0-2-1.
It was LaValle, CSI’s leading goal scorer in 2018, that opened the scoring early as she found herself on the receiving end of a ball won by Mirsade Pelinkovic that sprung her into the open field and set up her first of two goals in the game. Just under 3 minutes later, LaValle added another goal, this time powering her way through the Wildcats defense and tucking a shot just inside of the far post. With CSI now leading 2-0, Penn College was able to create several opportunities later in the first half, but the best of those were denied by goalkeeper Samantha Beaudreault and the Dolphins maintained their two-goal lead through the first 45 minutes.
Just as they finished the first half, the Wildcats came out strong to begin half number two and were able to cut the Dolphins lead to one less than three minutes after play resumed on a goal by Morgan Brooks. The goal from Brooks followed a corner kick that was initially deflected in the box by the Dolphins defense. Moments later, it found the foot of Brooks who fired it past Beaudreault for the first Wildcats goal. The 2-1 score would stand until the 65′ when Jordan Yagos, the Dolphins freshman forward, received a cross from fellow freshman Angye Galan that set up the Dolphins third goal of the game. The cross, which was sent into the box form the corner, found Yagos positioned in front of the near post where she buried the shot from close range.
Following the first career goal for Yagos, which gave the Dolphins a 3-1 lead, the Wildcats did not go down quietly and were able to trim the deficit back down to one on a Dominique Brown goal in the 83′. The Penn College goal seemed to shift the momentum in their favor with the clock ticking down and the Dolphins were forced to withstand a Wildcats surge over the final minutes of the match. Ultimately, three goals were enough and CSI was able to outlast Penn College in an exciting season-opener by a final score of 3-2.
In what was an entertaining game from start-to-finish, the two teams combined for 29 shots with 15 belonging to the Wildcats and 14 being tallied by the Dolphins. For CSI, LaValle scored a pair on 10 shots, one of which came on the assist from Pelinkovic. In addition to the contributions from those two second-year Dolphins, first-year Dolphins Galan and Yagos also connected to provide what turned out to be the deciding goal. For the Wildcats, Brooks and Brown also scored their first goals with Brown attempting 5 shots in the game.
The Dolphins return to action on the road against Ramapo this Wednesday at 3:30 with their next home match to be played on Saturday against William Paterson.
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