Women’s Soccer Defeats Saint Joseph’s, 3-1 for Weekend Sweep

Sunday, September 20

Ambler, Pa.

1:00 p.m.

Temple University

8-2-0

Saint Joseph's

5-3-0

Saint Joseph's

Temple University

Photo by: Joseph V. Labolito/Temple University

Women’s Soccer Defeats Saint Joseph’s, 3-1 for Weekend Sweep

9.20.15 | Women's Soccer

Box Score

AMBLER, Pa. – Temple women's soccer completed their non-conference schedule with a 3-1 win over city rival Saint Joseph's on Sunday. This is the first time the Owls have defeated the Hawks in back-to-back season (last season, Temple shutout St. Joe's, 1-0). The Owls move to 8-2-0 on the season.

A common trend in the last few game, Temple was first to score in the seventh minute of the game. Senior Shannon Senour was able to gather a ball and find senior Kelly Farrell on the run and after a quick pass, Farrell found right corner of the goal.

Saint Joseph's came back in the second half to tie things up in the 53^rd minute of the game. After Paige Bergman took a corner kick for the Hawks, the ball went sailing towards the goal where Hannah Racis was able to head it in.

The Owls then came back to score two more goals, both by Farrell. In the 59^th minute, she collected a pass from senior Paula Jurewicz up the middle of the field and sent it into the net. 10 minutes later, junior Elaine Byerley was able to gather the ball and sent it down field to Farrell's feet, as she sent it into the right corner of the net for the third score of the game.

The hat trick was the first for Farrell in her career and her 11 goals on the season marks a new career-high and ranks third in Temple history. Farrell had scored in eight consecutive games until she was held scoreless against La Salle on Friday.

Head coach Seamus O'Connor was happy with the way Temple's last non-conference game went, especially for his senior midfielder and her monumental day.

"I'm very pleased, especially for Kelly. It was a lot of pressure on her and that's not who she is. As a club player, she was an assist. But, we needed her to score goals here so we asked her change her game a little bit," said O'Connor. "It's hard to ask somebody to do that this late in their career and she's turned herself into a goal scorer. Every time you don't score you doubt yourself a little bit and we kept telling her 'just keep going' and it was really hard because the entire game plan for Saint Joseph's was to stop Kelly and they really isolated her and made sure she wasn't going to score. But she's just a different class."

With American Athletic Conference play opening for the Owls on the road against UCF and USF, O'Connor believes his team is ready to take on their opponents

"Right now, we feel confident. We've watched some UCF and USF tape, and we feel like we're better than we were last year. We have more options for scoring and we're definitely stronger," said O'Connor. "Sam Whitney has done a great job with the strength and conditioning. We're definitely stronger, we're fitter and faster than we were last year. We've done a lot of work and the girls have been great. They've let us work on different formations with different players. "

Kickoff in Orlando against the Knight is slated for 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, while Sunday's matchup against USF will be at 1:00 p.m.

Click here to watch highlights.