Sept. 6, 2003

ROMEOVILLE, Ill. - Fighting through a difficult match up with Concordia-St. Paul, the Lewis women's soccer team broke a 2-all tie with a goal in the final seven minutes and picked up a 3-2 victory over the Golden Bears.

"We had a good week of practice leading into this weekend," said Lewis head coach Bill Bruno. "We needed to turn things around after two losses in a row and we were able to do that with a well earned win."

The Flyers (2-2-0) leapt out to a quick 2-0 lead in the first 15 minutes of the game. Stacy Beaman scored on a free kick from the left wing at 10:11, and Michelle Sternbauer (Elk Grove Village, Ill./Conant) netted her first goal of the season at 14:13.

"I told the team before the game that we needed to come out firing," said Bruno. "We came out blazing in our first game, but had only scored one goal in our last two games. We needed to return to what we showed in the first game so that teams would have to realize they need to respect our offense."

After surrendering the two early goals, Concordia (1-2-0) woke up and mostly played to a stalemate for the next 30 minutes of the game. It was at 43:33 that Rachel Vitense scored on a feed from Sara Ulman to draw CSP within one.

Sternbauer tallied a goal in the opening minutes of the second half, but saw the score disallowed as a result of a foul.

"Michelle was fighting for a 50-50 ball, won the battle, but got called for a foul," said Bruno. "It was a call that could have come back to hurt us, but we came away with the win in the end anyway."

Concordia controlled the tempo a little more steadily in the second half and eventually tied the match at the 76:45 mark with a goal from Angie Rockney and assist by Vitense.

The Flyers maintained their composure following the goal and quickly regrouped to counter the swell of momentum Concordia was building. Lewis earned a corner kick a few minutes later and saw Beaman serve the ball to the middle of the box. Caroline Kenny (Leixlip, Ireland/) intercepted the ball in the air and kicked it into the upper left corner of the goal. The score at 83:03 allowed the team to kill the final 6:57 of the game and earn the victory.