Women’s Soccer Gets First Home Win of The Season 3-1 Over Rider

Thursday, August 31

Temple Sports Complex

6:00 PM

Temple University

2-3-0

Rider

0-3-0

RIDER

Temple

Photo by: Nguyen Ho

Women’s Soccer Gets First Home Win of The Season 3-1 Over Rider

8.31.17 | Women's Soccer

Box Score PDF Box Score Video Highlights

PHILADELPHIA - In a dominant performance by the Owls, Temple (2-3-0) picked up its first win of the season at home 3-1 over Rider (0-3-0). The Owls were in attack mode all night and reached a new season-high, 26 shots throughout the match. After giving up an early goal in the first half, Temple came firing back by scoring three unanswered goals to win the game.

Keys to the Match
>The Broncs struck first early in the ninth minute as Ellie Smith scored a goal off of a cross from Michelle Iacono.

>The Owls answered back in the 33rd minute when freshman Emma Wilkins scored her first goal of her career on a breakaway, placing it beautifully in the top left corner.

>Two minutes later, sophomore Morgan Morocco scored her first goal of the season off a beautiful assist from Emily Keitel from deep on Temple's defensive side.

>The Owls sealed the deal in the 86th minute as Wilkins scored her second goal of the game off a deflection, putting the game out of reach for Rider.

Match Notes

>The Owls were on the offensive all night as they had a season-high 26 shots. The defense also played great as they held Rider to only eight shots during the contest.

>Sophomore Morgan Basileo got her first career win in her first career start as she accounted for four saves on the night.

>With the two goals scored tonight by Wilkins, Temple now has two players with two goals through the first five games (Wilkins, Kerri McGinley). They also both lead the team in points with four each.

> Morocco scored her first goal of the season tonight. She now has three goals in the first two years of her career.

>Keitel got her first point of the season with the assist to Morocco. The Owls now have assists on four of their seven goals this year.

>With Basileo making the start tonight, 24 out 28 players have now seen the field for the Owls, continuing to show the tremendous depth that the team has.

Quotable
"Just the confidence we had going into tonight's match was great." said Temple head coach Seamus O'Connor. "We took advantage of the width by spreading the field and isolating them one v one and found a lot of our success came from that tonight. Catching them with our speed also helped and we were sound defensively the whole night. It was just a great team win."

"I'm very, very pleased with Morgan Basileo," said O'Connor. 'We have such strength at goalkeeper and Jordan and Morgan have been battling for the starting position and it's been great for us. This win will help Morgan's confidence go up. The whole goalie group supports each other and it's really a delight to see."

"Emma Wilkins works so hard in practice and probably strikes the ball the best of anyone that we have on goal," said O'Connor. "She gets so much power on it and once she got her first goal, we knew her confidence was going to go sky high."

Up Next
The Owls will play their third consecutive home game as they take on Mount St. Mary's on Sunday, Sept. 3, with a start time of 3:30 p.m. It will be part of a doubleheader for Temple soccer as the men take on Rider at 7:00 p.m.