On a day where the Dolphins would scatter 43 shots, the College of Staten Island women’s soccer team simply could not pull past host City College of New York in the final minutes, and settled for a 2-2 tie as part of CUNYAC competition today at Randall’s Island. The draw snapped the Dolphins win streak to open the season, as CSI is now 5-0-1 and 1-0-1 within conference play, while the Beavers are 2-1-1, 0-0-1, respectively.
From the outset in this one, CSI controlled play and put the pressure on, forcing CCNY keeper Catherine Landkamp to make early saves. After making three and seeing another four go wide, CSI finally got on the board in the 19th minute. There it was Lizbeth Aparicio, who scored twice against Lehman in CSI’s last contest, came through again via the header on a corner kick taken by Brittany Bornstad.
Over the next eight minutes, Landkamp made three move saves for CCNY, and it proved important as in the 27th minute, the Beavers got even on a goal by Gabrielle Duchaussee. That goal snapped a 430-minute shutout streak that the Dolphins had. The goal seemed to fluster the Dolphins, as six of their final seven shots on the frame sailed off-target. After one half of play, CSI had out-shot CCNY, 18-3, but were locked at 1-1 on the scoreboard.
Play evened in the first few minutes of the second half, as Landkamp and CSI keeper Kaila DiBenedetto both made a pair of saves in the early minutes. Then, 17:12 into the second half, CSI grabbed their second lead of the game, this time on Susan Aracena’s first career goal from in close, making it 2-1, with 26 minutes left to play.
A persistent CCNY team would not quit, and after Landkamp made another two saves, the Beavers drew even with just 11:41 to play, on a Tatiana Zuluaga goal.
CSI turned on the heat from there, but Landkamp was the star, making five saves in the final four minutes to seal the game at 2-2, forcing overtime.
In the first overtime, CSI came close to winning it in the 95th minute when a Lauren Smith shot hit the crossbar, but still, despite seven shots in the overtime, CSI came up empty. In the second overtime frame, just 18 seconds in Aracena missed a chance to win it when her shot hit the post as well, and just moments later, the exact same thing happened to CCNY’s Duchaussee. Despite a 5-1 edge in shots for CSI, there would be no winner, as the game finally settled in the 2-2 draw.
CSI enjoyed a tremendous 43-7 edge in shots (22-5 on goal) And had 15 corner kicks to CCNY’s zero. Landkamp made an incredible 20 saves for the Beavers while DiBenedetto made three. Smith and Stephanie LaPointe led all players with seven shots apiece.
For the Dolphins, the draw interrupts what was their longest win streak in history to open a season at five games. CSI’s best ever start to a season with ties included was back in 2013 when they started 12-0-1. The Dolphins will look to get back in the win column on Wednesday, September 20, when they take on Kean University at 3:30pm at the CSI Soccer Complex.
