Box Score NORMAL, Ill. – The Drake women's soccer team rallied to beat the Illinois State Redbirds, 3-2, Saturday night at Adelaide Street Field as the Bulldogs defeated the Redbirds for the first time since the 2005 season. The loss is the first for Illinois State in Missouri Valley Conference play since the 2012 campaign.
Drake (4-7) fell behind 2-0 as Lauren Koehl scored in the ninth minute of the game while Emily Dickman added the second goal in the 50th minute for Illinois State (3-6-2).
However, the Bulldogs mounted a furious rally as the second half continued. Junior Rebecca Rodgers (Peotone, Ill.) put Drake on the scoreboard with her fourth goal of the season in the 72nd minute as Rodgers fired a strike from 19 yards out that flew into the left corner of the net to cut Illinois State's lead in half.
Less than three minutes later, junior Sarah Grace Nicholson (Overland Park, Kan.) scored her first goal of the season on a header off a corner kick to even the score at 2-2. Junior Kayla Armstrong (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) assisted on both Drake goals.
Drake earned its third goal in the 85th minute as Illinois State initially cleared a corner kick by the Bulldogs, but sophomore Ali Smith (Lenexa, Kan.) put a diagonal ball back in the box that the Redbirds headed into their own net to put Drake up 3-2.
“We found ourselves down 2-0 and Kayla and Becca put the team on there back,” said head coach Lindsey Horner. “Alyssa (Brand) as always was a physical presence in midfield and Linda (Fiorito) was superb in the back. This was the opposite of our Creighton game where we played so well, but came up short. Tonight we had moments, but let ourselves down with quality for the first seventy minutes. Then we stole the momentum in the last twenty and ran with it. I'm really proud of how our players adjusted as we scrapped our game plan and adapted to what we felt could get us a result.”
Drake welcomes Indiana State on Oct. 2 for its first league home match with kickoff against the Sycamores set for 7 p.m. at Cownie Soccer Complex.
“Every game in the league is going to be a battle and I think our players felt that tonight,” Horner said. “Each game we will need someone from the bench to provide a spark and Hannah (Wilder) and Tawny (Carroll) did that for us tonight. This was our third game in seven days so are looking forward to recovering and then preparing to host Indiana State on Friday.”
