Close Contest Decided By Late Penalty Kick

WINONA, Minn. (9/30/23)---It was a late-game, penalty-kick decider doubleheader in Winona for the Concordia soccer teams. The men's team gave up the game-winning goal in the 70th minute of play in the opener and the women's squad had their contest decided in the 73rd minute by a penalty kick.

The Cobbers and St. Mary's were locked in a back-and-forth tight contest until the game-deciding goal at 72:05, which sent CC to its first loss in four games. Concordia sees both of its records even out the .500 mark. CC is now 4-4-1 overall and 2-2-0 in the MIAC. St. Mary's improved to 5-5-0 in all games and is now 1-4-0 in league play.   

THE 411: The majority of the game was played between the penalty areas, with both defenses refusing to allow any quality chance from around the goal. The first half featured fewer shots as the teams combined for six total shots. The second half opened up a bit with 15 shots being attempted. The game-winning goal came after the Cardinals were awarded a corner kick. The ball was played into the far post and caromed out to the penalty spot. The SMU attacker went to shoot the ball and got tangled up with a Cobber defender. The shot went wide, but the referee deemed that the CC defender had interfered with the shot. The subsequent spot kick was successful and proved to be the only goal of the game. Concordia had five shots in the final 18 minutes of play but couldn't come up with the game-tying goal.                

THE NEXT LEVEL: Concordia and St. Mary's have now played eight consecutive games that have either ended in a tie or been decided by a single goal.   

THE NEXT LEVEL 2.0: Concordia has now had seven of its nine games tied or decided by a single goal. That includes the last four contests. Of those seven games, six have featured a shutout by one of the teams.
    
BY THE NUMBERS: St. Mary's had a 1-shot edge in total shots at 11-10 with a similar margin in shots on goal (6-5). Both teams had three corners in the game. There were 22 fouls in the game.

INDIVIDUALLY SPEAKING: Sophia Robinson was the only Concordia player with more than one shot. She had a game-high five shots with three on goal. CC goalie Kaitlin Petrich made four saves in goal.    
      
UP NEXT: Concordia will return to action when they host Augsburg on Saturday, Oct. 7 at 3:30 p.m.